


Times Being What They Are

by Rulerofthefakeempire



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: And then he becomes a very bad dad, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gabe Being an Asshole, Gabe is a good dad, Hana is a good daughter, Hurt/Comfort, Jack is a Mediocre Dad, Jesse McCree is a soft boi, M/M, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, but gets better, but that's less important, they're trying their best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-05-02 14:00:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19200316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofthefakeempire/pseuds/Rulerofthefakeempire
Summary: Four times Jesse McCree came to the rescue of four important people, and the one time they came to rescue him.





	1. Hana Song

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so this is a side project that I've accidentally become invested in aside from my actual proper McHanzo fic, Cynicism Isn't Wisdom, so check that bad boy out if that's what brought you here. This is all fairly cannon except for all the rampant homosexuality and the timeline jumps about a bit, so be aware of that. 
> 
> Other than that, proceed and enjoy my folly. 
> 
> P.s.
> 
> Small trigger warning for this chapter, dude gets a bit handsy, but is otherwise thwarted before harm is done.

The music thrummed hot and heavy through the air, and the bar was far more crowded than she’d anticipated, every stool taken, loiterers hovering over people’s shoulders, trying to catch the eyes of the numerous bartenders. For a moment she stood on its boundary, staring into the heaving mass of limbs and sweaty armpits, thinking that every war front had a weak spot, somewhere where a tiny Korean such as herself might be able to weasel in between, clamber over the top, or crouch beneath. She stared, her exhausted brain trying to figure out if she wanted to give them more to drink at all, if the mission she’d been given was really worth the approval she’d gain by completing it.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept for more than a couple hours at a time; her fatigue always catching her in the back of cargo planes, cars, mid-way through briefings. She’d once woken up drooling on the medic’s arm while he’d been stitching up a laceration to her left shoulder. And she was so tired, all her adrenaline run out, baffled and rough. They’d completed the mission they’d come to this country to complete, and she didn’t fully understand why they couldn’t go home now. She just wanted to sleep, just wanted to feel all the aches and pains melt out of her. Back in her own room, with all her own stuff, her own pillows, the secret food she kept under her bed, to remind her of her home. 

Instead she was trapped here, staring at this bar, fatigued and already more intoxicated than she’d planned to be. She didn’t understand at all the practice of celebration drinks when she was certain that some of them had to have had less sleep than she had and more battle wounds to boot. 

She blinked solemnly and was on the verge of starting forward, determined to push her way through the mass, when an arm was slung around her waist, hand firmly planted on the fabric of her civilian clothes. She stiffened briefly but forced herself to relax. It was probably Captain Amari or her daughter, Lucio or that big dude with the shield, or most hopefully, that girl with the shield. Someone who might have noticed how tired she was, how not up to this she was, how much she just wanted to go home.

Instead, the face of a stranger grinned down at her, his beard stubbly, his eyes dark, and his teeth strangely sharp looking, canines pointing out of his mouth. Her heart fell into her stomach at the sight of him. Knowing he was just another obstacle she was going to have to get around, more work she was going to have to put in, in order to get back to her quarters. Her face sank, she was sure.

“Well,” he purred, “aren’t you just the most radiant little creature in here?” His putrid breath wafted over her face and she almost gagged, “Do you have a boyfriend, beautiful?” She snarled, already pulling away, trying to pry his hand from her waist. 

“Leave me alone,” she hissed, unable to help the way her voice sounded more tired than assertive. His body only followed her as she moved, hands finding other places to cling onto, caress. He made her sick. 

“Aw, baby, don’t be like that,” he murmured, breath fluttering over her ear, sending her shivering away in disgust. She tried to pull out of his grasp and he pulled her back. She suddenly became keenly aware of how much taller than her he was, how much bigger he was, the way he loomed over her, catching her wrists, running hands down her back. She pulled harder and his hands tightened, her heart launching into her throat. Her eyes searched every face that passed them, isolated in a space full to the brim with people, hoping that someone might see her struggling, see how exhausted and young and a bit drunk she was, fighting off the advances of some domineering buffoon with no idea of how dangerous she could be. 

She found none and wished again that she’d been born a brute, either as to not be approached by men in bars or so that she could easily deal with them when they did. 

She made for the bathroom, but it was like playing a tug of war with her own body, trying to be rid of the feeling of his hands, the way he tugged at her clothes, her waist, trying to push her jacket from her shoulder. 

Suddenly, he spun her around, yanking hard on her wrist, and crowding up against her, grinning downwards, their bodies all pressed together, and evil glint in his eyes, delighting in the flash of fear that ran through her, her breath hitching in her throat. All she could see was him, the way his body took up all her vision, swallowing the world whole, universe extending only as far at his awful breath and yellow teeth. All she could feel was how bound she was, struggling like a captive animal, his arm tight and hard around her waist.

“Now,” he drawled, “this doesn’t have to be hard if you don’t want it to be.” His fat fingers released her wrist and her hand shot into her jacket, hand wrapping firmly around the handle of her pistol, on her at all times, just like she’d been trained. His hand reached for her cheek and she flinched, trying to start backwards again, trapped and straining against him. 

“Let me  _go_ ,” her voice was getting shrill, heartbeat in her throat, the man somehow getting closer and closer to her, hand on her jaw, hungry look in his eyes, as though she were consumable, ready to be devoured. If he kissed her, she was going to shoot him and there was nothing she was going to be able to do about it.

“Just stay still, ba-”

He didn’t get halfway through the word before he was cut off by a metal hand wrapping around his wrist and tightening.

“Now then,” a voice came from above, laced with honest venom, “you better be lettin’ her go now, or I’m gonna haveta break your wrist.” The man jumped, eyes flung open, fright flashing across his face. He stared up at the owner of the voice, features bright with fear, like he’d come upon a snake in long grass, ready to strike. He scrambled backwards, hands launching from her, hand gone from her cheek, still trapped in the metal hand, arm gone from her waist.

Hana looked up the second she could no longer feel the man’s touch on her, the second he took a step back, and there was Jesse McCree, the gunslinger, snarling, standing taller than them both. And Hana knew she had the capacity to be deadly, had proved it time and time again, but McCree wore his fatality on his shoulders, clear for anyone to see; from the gun at his belt, to the prosthetic that could break bones, to the keenness of his eyes and the sharpness of his teeth. 

“There’s no need to bring violence into this,” the man stuttered out, “I-I was just playing with the girl, I wasn’t going to do anything.” 

Hana watched McCree growl, lip curling, eyes narrow, bathed in contempt, disgust. 

“You best make yourself scarce now,” he snapped, face twisted, nose crinkled, “or I’m gonna do something I’ll regret in the mornin’, y’hearin’ me?” 

The man nodded frantically, and McCree released his arm in disgust, damn near wiping his hand on his shirt to get rid of his stench. The man tripped over his feet to get away, disappearing back into the crowd with his tail between his legs, McCree watching him go with a sneer so that if he ever turned back he’d see the gunslinger still there, snarling at him. 

“Piece o’ shit,” Hana heard him mutter, staring up at him, watching him change the second he lost sight of the man’s back in the crowd. She could almost see his hackles going down, his teeth all tucked back behind his lips, claws retracted. He seemed to get shorter, settling back into his shoulders, features relaxing. He smiled down at her, shoulders loosening, hands back in his pockets. 

As acts went, it was an impressive one.

She could remember being introduced to him, remembered asking for his rank and position when it hadn’t been given to her. He’d laughed. They hadn’t spoken much since then, but she’d heard his voice through the mission com every now and then, executing some perfect destruction, always exactly where he’d said he’d be, never a hitch in his plan, if he had one. He was better at this than any American in a hat had a right to be. He was even on better standing with the senior officers than she was. So much so that it made her wonder if he was one of them, if he had been.

She remembered seeing Captain Amari hit him upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper once, as though he was just a big kid to her. Nothing like the man who had been threatening to break someone’s wrist a moment before, now smiling down at her, as though nothing had happened at all.

“You alright, Miss Song?”

If anyone else had referred to her like that she would have taken is for teasing. But he seemed empty of mockery, as though it was just his way. She frowned up at him.

“I didn’t need your help,” she couldn’t make any of her statements sound the way she wanted them to, none of her strength left, drained out of her. All that she could muster was pettiness.

McCree rocked back on his heals to observe her, chuckling.

“Didn’t think you did,” he smiled, “just thought you puttin’ a pretty little bullet through some bastard’s brain was a lot of paperwork this late in the evenin’.” He tipped his hat downwards, gesturing to where her hand was still tight around the handle of her pistol. She jumped and withdrew it, almost sheepish, McCree grinning down at her.

“Good point,” she muttered, eyes falling to the floor. She felt her shoulders tightly coiled above her chest like her defences were all that was keeping her up, exhausted by the concept that she was going to have to go back to the bar. She didn’t want to have to retreat back there. Just more obstacles, over and over again, always something new to keep her from her bed.

And she just wanted to be asleep, rubbing at her eyes, defeated. She’d defended her country, taken down more enemies than she could count, completed impossible missions, but the thought that she was going to have to stay, that she still had things to do, filled her with a lassitude that almost made her legs buckle beneath her, a raw sort of fatigue.

The sort of fatigue that made every emotion louder, all off balance and wobbly, the concept of being alone here suddenly frightening her, going and standing exactly where she’d stood when he’d come, that he might still be in here somewhere, that his hands might return to her body, his aggression undeterred.

Above her, McCree cleared his throat.

“Listen,” he said, “why don’t you let me walk you back to the bunks?” His voice was kind and soft even with the music loud in her ears, “You look tired, kiddo.” She looked up and he was smiling softly down at her, as though she was in fact, very small and very young, like she was deserving of care. And despite herself, she felt relief bubble through her, shoulders sagging.

Most other members had gone to great lengths to treat her like an adult, like she was the same as the rest of them, to respect her military history, her technical skill, but tonight, tonight she felt her youth like an anvil on her back. She wasn’t used to this, she didn’t have to bones for this, and she was just so tired. And McCree was looking at her with a sort of gentleness, as though she couldn’t be expected to be upright all the time, as though she was still entitled to a little delicacy every now and again, even with her expertise in death. Something in his tone made homesickness and exhaustion roar up in her chest, overcome with emotion she was too weary to process. Her eyes welled with tears looking up at him, lips pressed together, and she nodded, unable to fathom any words.

He nodded back, firm in his offer.

“Alrighty, darlin’, just let me grab your stuff.”

She sniffed and trailed after him when he turned, sticking close to him, trying to keep her eyes on his back, trying not to feel the other bodies, the way they pushed up against her, trying to remind herself that before that man had touched her she’d felt safe here, strong here. They approached the table where the others were all lounging, more empty glasses than mouths, all falling out of their chairs with laughter, arms around each other’s shoulders. And some part of her wanted to join in, participate, all squeezed in amongst them, have fun like they were having fun.

But she was so tired and so empty of energy, her throat all closed up with emotion, her bones too stiff to lounge. And if one of them asked her where she’d been she would cry, she could tell, she would weep with the weight of her exhaustion, the fear that had filled her and there would be nothing able to stop her once she got started. 

Instead she stopped short at their periphery, hoping they wouldn’t see her, that they’d forget where she’d gone, let her disappear into the din of the bar, let them wonder if she’d even been there at all. She watched McCree reach down to the seat she’d been sitting in before she’d been sent for drinks, a few sets of eyes rising to him as he entered their space, a chorus of approval at his arrival. He smiled down at them and said nothing, slinging her bright pink backpack over his shoulder. He addressed none of them, except for Captain Amari, leaning down, hand on her shoulder. Hana watched her raise her ear to him, almost instinctive, their behaviour, habitual. She watched his lips move, watched the way her eye flickered back at her, watched an expression of concern dawn on her face.

She looked back up at him, almost despairing, and he whispered a few more words, making promises she suspected, to take care of her, take her home. It had been years since someone had promised to keep her safe and not the other way around. 

McCree returned to her with a smile, one hand on the strap of her backpack, the other out to herd her backwards, back towards the exit. And she was glad, as they made their way out, that he kept so close, close enough that he might swat away any opportunistic hand, shield her from the crowds. She could defend herself, knew that, knew the violence she was capable of, but with him there, she could lay down her defences, could afford not to concentrate so hard on the bodies around her and all the ways she could hurt and be hurt by them.

He pushed the door open over her head, and the second it closed behind them she almost collapsed to the ground in relief, to be able to hear her own thoughts again, the swallowing, encompassing music suddenly trapped behind the door, leaving them only with the dull vibration of distant noise. Instead she just stood for a moment, rubbing at her face in the cool, night-time air. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to steady herself, despite how she could feel her shoulders shaking, the fatigue she could feel entrenched in her body.

A hand came to her back and she flinched hard, sucking in a ragged breath. It was just a half second of panic before she realised it was McCree, her body more jumpy than reasonable, easily frightened. 

McCree looked down at her with a kind of steady concern, brow furrowed. He pressed his lips together at her.

“Come on, darlin’,” he murmured, “let’s get you home.” He offered his metal arm, and after a moment of hesitation, she took it, his warm hand covering hers in the crook of his elbow. Despite herself, she leaned into him, into his comfortable warmth, seeking something solid to prop her weight against, giving all she had for him to carry.

He began to guide them along, down the cobbled streets, no falter in his step. They passed under street lights in the soft silence of the night, of the town already asleep like she should have been,

“Excuse me for askin’, Miss Song,” his voice came from above her but when she looked up his eyes hadn’t shifted from their path, “but how old are you now?” 

Hana returned her gaze to the soft, yellow light. 

“I’m nineteen,” she whispered, hardly able to wonder why he was asking, “and you can call me Hana, it’s okay.” 

She felt McCree hum.

“Bit older than I was,” he murmured, Hana listening more to their footsteps than to his voice, “those first few months were the hardest.” 

They turned when he gestured that they should, and she leaned further into him, starved for tenderness, so long spent in the uncaring embrace of war games and her mech, so long spent fighting, so far from home.

“Were you in the military too?” 

He laughed, low and bitter.

“No, darlin’, I was in a gang.” 

“Oh.”

He patted her hand and when she looked up he was grinning to himself.

“It’s alright, got myself on the straight and narrow nowadays, don’t you worry.”

She got the feeling he was laughing at her as they walked, but she figured he’d probably earned the right more than most. Embarrassment might come soon enough but for the time being, she could only feel relief, could only take comfort. She could only thank him for taking her out of there, for not letting her shoot that man, for carrying her bag and her arm, guiding her though the haze of her exhaustion, making sure she was safe.

“Does it get easier?” She heard herself whisper, eyes dull, holding onto his metal arm, knowing there had to have been flesh there once, knowing something awful must have happened for it to have been taken from him. They walked through the darkness, down the cobbled streets as they approached the bunks and he sighed.

“Yeah, darlin’, it gets easier,” his voice was heavy, leading her towards the gate of the makeshift Watchpoint. The guard buzzed them in at the sight of one half-hearted grin from McCree. “But you gotta remember,” he murmured, gentleness in every gesture, delicacy, “there’s danger in that too. You lose something real important when things get easier. You gotta hold onto the part of you that’s tired, because it’s the part that’ll get you to sleep when this is over.” She blinked up at his face, his features soft, leading her down the steps to her quarters.

“I want to sleep,” she muttered as they walked down the path, moonlight shining down on the courtyard to their left, the grass silvery. He chuckled.

“Good,” he said, “good. Needin’ rest is how you know you’re still alive, still human.”

She squinted up at him, unable to smile, but his words were a comfort, came to warm her belly, sit with her exhaustion, no fighting it now. When they reached her door, he gave her her bag, slung from off his shoulder, and she clutched it to her chest. She was so close, she was so close to a bed she could call hers, so close to the sweet embrace of a sleep like death, knowing she didn’t have the energy to dream. Nonetheless she paused, McCree smiling down at her.

“Thank you for walking me home,” she whispered, “I’m sorry you had to leave early.”

He laughed, and his gaze was fond, the crow’s feet crinkling by his eyes. He shrugged. 

“It ain’t nothin’, darlin’, I got someone waitin’ on me anyway,” his smile turned soft, “and you remember, if you’re ever in a jam, you just give me a ring and I’ll be right there.” His eyes were looking at her as though she was small and valuable, “and if I get there late, I’ll help ya with the paperwork.” He winked, and Hana frowned up at him, sliding her keycard into the lock.

“Goodnight, Gunslinger,” she said firmly. He laughed.

“G’night Hana, you sleep well. You earned it.”

She watched him amble down the corridor with his hands stuffed into his pockets before she slipped inside, watching his broad back disappear. And it seemed strange that they’d hardly spoken to each other before this, that she had hardly remembered his name, just known of his gun and beautiful skill. And yet as the door closed behind her, she felt as though she had all the information she needed, that she knew him, and he was trustworthy.

That was an important thing to know about someone

She fell asleep on top of her covers.


	2. Gabriel Reyes Pt.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this fic is mostly canonical, but this chapter is a bit of a shift. Just roll with it, it's just the way it happened. 
> 
> It's also in two parts because I legitimately forgot how to regulate chapter sizes, most of these chapter will be split into two, because they are. too big. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.

The kid got off the bus wearing the single dumbest hat he’d ever seen on anyone, duffle bag strap over his shoulder and a look of disgust on his scruffy little face. Gabe could still see the bruises where someone must have knocked him about real bad, split lip, grazes all down one side of his face where he must have hit the ground, swollen jaw, freckles over his nose and a mean squint to his eyes. Gabe watched him pull the hat low over his forehead, shoving his hand into his pocket, and heaving the strap of his bag further up his skinny shoulder. He was such a kid, wiry and sneering, as though he could have had a deep voice long enough to have learned how to growl, what was worth his rage and what wasn’t.

Gabe watched him looking about, eyes narrow, snarling at every face he passed from across the carpark.

“Listen, Ana,” his eyes stayed on the kid, Ana bitterly silent on the other end of the phone, “I don’t know what gave you the impression that I should be taking care of kids, but I’d like to take that shit back.” She didn’t laugh, Gabe heard the place where her laugh would have been, low and mirthful, if she’d been anything but serious.

“He’s seventeen, Gabriel,” her voice was exasperated, huffy, he could almost see the hand gesture she would have made, “they’re basically dogs at that age, all you have to do is feed him and give him somewhere comfortable to sleep and he’ll follow you anywhere.”

“I pray to god Fareeha stays twelve forever if that’s your take on parenting.”

“I’m not asking you to be his dad, Gabriel, just keep him alive until he turns eighteen.”

He watched the kid coming to terms with the fact that he didn’t know who he was looking for, standing still as people walked around him, a rock in a river, eyes flickering. Gabe could almost see the gears in his head turning, watching him react to the cold wind that blew through the bus shelter, clutching the brim of his hat to secure it to his head. No coat to pull around himself. That was going to be a problem.

Gabe frowned, sneered at nothing.

“Tell me Amari, how long ago exactly was this kid in an actual goddamn gang?”

There was a pause.

“A day and a half.”

“And you think he’s just gonna fall into my open arms? When I was his age, I woulda stabbed anyone who looked at me wrong,” the kid hadn’t spotted him yet, and he made no moves to get his attention, just watched him from across the parking lot, waiting to see what he would do, if he’d run or if he’d stay. He had the look of a stray cat by a front door, ready to take opportunity by the balls the second that door opened, eyes narrow, nose down, coiled like he could go from zero to sixty in a half second flat.

“He’s a good boy,” Ana’s voice was firm through the phone, and his eyes widened at the sight of the kid finally moving, finally showing his cards, “he is, and it’s us or jail for him. He knows that.” He gaped, watching the kid go stomping back in the direction he’d come, something clutched in his hand, nose tucked into his bandana, hard look in his eyes.

“Well, fuck me, Ana, if he’s such a good kid, why the fuck did I just see him steal some poor fuck’s wallet?” He hung up the phone, damn near cracking the screen with his thumb, striding towards the bus shelter, trying to follow his hat in the crowd.

He caught the kid by the collar just before he stepped foot on some bus destined for anywhere but here, yanking him hard till he stumbled, letting out a small shriek of fright. His hand dove for something that wasn’t there, and Gabe caught it, pulling him away from the vehicle like he was a sack of sentient potatoes. Such a skinny thing. The kid yelled in protest, kicking and fighting to get off him. It took more than it should have to subdue him, lean strength behind his narrow shoulders, determined ferocity to his ankles, using Gabe’s weight against him. He barely managed to take a hold of his wrists and keep him still for a half moment, his hands held above his head.

“Would you just chill out, kid? _Jesus_ ,” he hissed, the kid snarling up at him, hat fallen from his head, eyes narrowed to shards of glass, showing his canines like he was a fighting dog. More rage in him than someone so young should have been able to contain. Gabe was breathless with the tussle, but held onto him tight, the kid straining against his grasp, thrashing against his captivity like he could still run if he wanted to.

“Lemme _go_ ,” the kid’s lip curled, all teeth this one, all fury lighting up his eyes, reddening his cheeks.

“Yeah, I’m gonna. And you are _not_ gonna run, you hear me?”

The kid’s nostrils flared at him, jaw tense, enraged like a provoked animal, like he was barely even human, feral, breathing ragged. But Gabe could see him waning, the strain on his hands to keep him still getting weaker, his gaze slipping to the side as if he didn’t have the energy to maintain his rage, dark circles under his eyes, his chest heaving, duffle bag fallen to the floor. _J._ _McCree_ it’s label read.

J. McCree.

He wondered if he’d stolen the bag too.

“Fine,” the boy spat, and very, very slowly Gabe let his wrists down, realising that he’d been able to comfortably get his fingers all the way around both. A disconcerting thought. He set the kid down, standing back with his hands raised, giving him the space to rub at his wrists, glare a touch, carefully kicking the duffle bag behind his scuffed boots, as though Gabe was going to take it off him. 

“So who the fuck are you then?” The kid barked, rubbing his elbows, hunched down on his haunches, hackles raised, venomous look to his eyes.

Gabe growled back.

“Watch your mouth,” he snapped, “And I’m your fucking boss, so if you ever pull shit like that again, I’ll throw your ass in a cell so quick it’ll give you whiplash.” The kid seemed affronted by the statement, but stood his ground, almost leaning forward like he was trying to walk through a wind tunnel, laying his weight down on the air, daring him to push.

“That’s a funny name,” he snarled, no humour to his tone, dark glint to his eyes like he was considering what Gabe might look like with his throat cut open, unbridled hatred.

“Remember who’s in charge here, kid, you ain’t shit.”

The kid smirked.

“Well, you ain’t shit either, boss, not if you’re stuck babysittin’ me.”

Gabe dragged him back to the truck by his ear.

But not before taking the wallet off him, tossing it at the nearest employee and yelling “my shitty kid found this!”

…

McCree sat in the passenger seat, duffle bag clutched to his chest, watching every street they passed, aware of every turned corner, every stoplight, as if memorising how he’d make his way back. His lips were pressed together, eyes narrow, hat firmly planted on his head, looking at everything with a sort of sober bitterness, feeling every meter they travelled like a dripping tap filling a bath, feeling the distance between them and the bus station growing. And there was a kind of resilient determination to his eyes, like he’d walk back to the bus station on broken ankles if he had to, no coat through the snow, there was nothing he wasn’t willing to do.

If Gabe remembered correctly, the gang he’d been in was based somewhere in New Mexico, and it made him wonder if this was his first time this far north, if he knew that he’d die of the cold long before Gabe found him if he decided to make his run at night. 

He seemed to grow more and more disheartened the further they drove, staring out the window. He seemed to strain desperately for street signs as they began to shed the town, moving further out into the wilderness, into the trees. Gabe had always preferred his safe houses a little more out of the way. He was more comfortable knowing that if anyone was going to come for him they weren’t going to enjoy it; if he was going to be attacked, he wanted his attackers cold, miserable, and very far from their hotel. 

When he pulled off the road, up the mountain, the kid squinted at the mailbox and the name painted there. 

“Your name is Wazouski?” 

Gabe tried to stifle the instinctive bark of laughter that shot out of him. 

“It’s a safe house, kid, doesn’t work very well if it’s got my real name on it.”

McCree snarled into the trees in response, lip curling. He’d never seen anyone so young so bitter.

They twisted further up the mountain until the house came into view, through a parting in the trees, rolling up the drive. It was his favourite, had been his favourite for years. He’d spent years here, accumulatively, waiting for some mission to blow over, for the newspapers to lose interest and go back to Jack and his perfectly white teeth. He knew it inside and out, to the creak of the back door, to the whistle of the stovetop kettle, spent more time there than anyone else, left boxes of his old stuff to save on storage.

He parked where he always did, McCree staring up at the house, scrutinising the rafters, the front door, the windows; sneering. He had the look of someone prowling around the walls of a cell, eyes in search of a nail file, a rock, a window, an air vent, anything. Fingers twitching for the first escape plan that came to mind, staring into the trees like they were an open door, like they were his railroad and he’d take it if given half the chance. 

The thought that if the kid ran Gabe was going to have to go after him was exhausting and he was exhausted by it. 

All he’d wanted was a couple months out of the firing line, catching up on work, not getting shot at, enjoying some isolation from society, and instead some dumb-as-fuck seventeen-year-old sat beside him, fucking up all his plans for peace.

But hey, maybe Ana was right, she often was.

Maybe everything would get easier if he just thought of McCree just as an animal of simple needs, just a body needing to be fed.

“Okay,” he let out a breath, “Here’s the truth,” he felt the kid’s eyes flicker over to him, away from the forest. “If you run this late in the day, you’ll freeze to death. That’s just a fact, once the sun goes down, it gets real cold real fast and you’ll freeze,” McCree watched him warily, eyebrows together as if he wanted to argue, “so how about, just for tonight, we make a deal, huh?” He let his gaze dart over to him, hands still on the steering wheel, McCree still clutching his duffle bag. He nodded, and Gabe continued, “let’s say, that just for tonight, you stay put. We’ll eat some dinner, you can have a wash, and then tomorrow, you can give it another go at living in the woods or some shit. Understand?”

There was a distrustful silence from the other side of the car, nose buried in his bandana, looking like he was at least thinking about it, perhaps thinking about how easy it would be to wrench the car door open and rip out into the trees, perhaps thinking about what it would feel like to die out there, in the cold, so far from home.

His eyes drifted, that forlorn look on his face again. He looked so young, so little.

“You listening to me, kid?” 

A touch of exhausted gravel made his voice come out like a bite and the kid flinched, eyes darting back to him, shoulders tense. For a second, he almost showed his fear before it disappeared a half second later under a smoke screen of rage. Gabe didn’t know what kind of fear he had in him, but it was powerful and enraged, more willing to snap than shrink.

“Yeah, I’m hearin’ you,” he spat, “you just ain’t very convincin’.”

He sneered back.

“Shut up kid,” he opened the door and slammed it behind him, boots to the gravel. The kid could run if he wanted to, but something told him that seventeen-year-olds don’t survive in gangs unless they’ve already got a powerful unwillingness to die in their wiry, little bodies; something told him McCree wasn’t going to take the risk. From the door he watched the kid take a long look towards the trees, watched him shiver and look back at him, holding the door open, offering him a warm meal, blankets, somewhere soft to sleep, a comfortable captivity. Gabe could almost see the animal in him with its nose in the air, unwilling to let free meals go uneaten.

Gabe watched him sneer and start towards him, duffle bag over his shoulder, hat pressed to his head, eyes down, slipping by him and into his safe house, terms agreed to, one way or another.

That night they ate two-minute noodles in front of the hot stove and he woke up thrice to check if he was still passed out on the couch, splayed out beneath his blankets, using his bag as a pillow, left foot on the coffee table, one arm thrown over his head, snoring loudly. The next morning when he’d crept out onto the porch in the early hours, fully dressed, hat back on his head, pockets full of stolen protein bars, Gabe had described the way a bear could run over five times faster than he could, smell him from a mile off too. He’d watched the kid decide to hedge his bets with tomorrow and slink back inside.

That morning they ate oats in front of the stove in silence and McCree did as he had done the night before, almost unhinging his jaw to eat as much as he could, offering his bowl for a third portion before Gabe had even finished his first. He ate like a bear preparing for the winter, like he operated on the understanding that for every meal he was given, there was an even longer period of starvation ahead. He took advantage of every meal, scooping food into his mouth like famine was always just around the corner, refusing to surrender the protein bars in his pockets. 

Gabe had decided to let him keep them anyway, watching him eat with his, head tipped back, scrapping food into his mouth, and couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that hungry.

Gabe watched over him and life continued.

The kid didn’t disrupt much of his routine, mostly kept to himself, waking up each morning to consider the trees, to consider his options, and each morning he slunk back inside, not quite able to drag himself away from a free meal, not quite sure he could outrun a bear. In the evening he liked to sit in his nest of blankets, one of Gabe’s good thermal skivvies on under his flannel, and polish his gun.

Gabe had damn near launched himself behind the armchair he’d been sitting on as he’d taken it out that second night.

“It’s okay,” he’d said, face blank, “your friend took the bullets off me.”

“But she left you with the gun?” Gabe had stared, tensed at the sight of it, cursing himself for not thinking to search his bag, god knows what else was in there, probably a belt of hand grenades and a stick of TNT too.

“It’s my favourite,” McCree had explained as though that was a good reason, holding it up to the air, finger off the trigger, watching it glimmer. It was beautiful, an old pearl handle revolver, six chambers, designed to last and last well, to go off quick and accurate, take a life in an exquisite way. And McCree had held it like it was a part of him, an extension of his hand, twirling it around on his finger as though it weighed nothing at all, watching it catch the light with stars in his eyes.

And Gabe hadn’t had the heart to take it off him, not with the way he looked at it. And there was nothing he could do with a gun with no bullets that he couldn’t do with a heavy lamp.

He gave the kid more allowances than he’d expected, letting him go about his business his own way, do what he wanted from within the confines of the safe house. He let him keep his gun as long as he took care of it, let him go through the cupboards in the middle of the night, let him carve little figures from firewood with one of Gabe’s good knives; as though he wasn’t even a captive, just an unexpected roommate. And if the kid was hiding violent tendencies, he never showed them, strangely gentle by nature, as long as he thought Gabe wasn’t watching.

The worst thing was, Gabe was starting to find himself more and more endeared. The longer the kid lingered, the more mornings went by that he was still asleep on the couch by the time the sun rose, the more often they ate together, huddled in front of the stove, the more apparent it became that he was just a kid.

Just a kid who hadn’t known better, who couldn’t have known better, a kid who probably hadn’t been treated kindly once in his life, taught since birth the only person willing to keep him alive was him, that the only meal he could guarantee was the one already in his mouth. And Gabe found himself feeling just so sorry for him, so sorry that no one had ever told him that he was worth taking care of, that he was still just a kid, that this whole time someone should have been caring for him, keeping him fed, keeping him warm, keeping him from the pointy edges of life.

Someone should have been there for him.

He didn’t think the kid knew that.

…

“You ever been shot?” McCree leant over the bench top to peer at him, one of Gabe’s old beanies on his head. He felt the cold a lot harsher than Gabe did, wasn’t used to it.

Gabe had offered him clothes, knowing they’d hang off him, but he mostly kept to his old shirts, soft flannels, his ragged jeans with some remnants of desert dust still on the knees. He didn’t have a coat, but he liked to pull a red serape around his shoulders in the evening, slept in it. It took Gabe a shamefully long time to realise that it was because he was homesick, because he was in mourning, missing New Mexico, missing his life, holding tight onto the few possessions he’d been allowed to keep.

A few mornings before, halfway through a mouthful of oats, he’d said that he missed the smell of the sand the most, missed the sun, hot and bright above him. That he missed it worse on the cold days, trapped in woods so deep the sun couldn’t reach, smothered by unfamiliar snow, so far from home. Something harsh and strong had twinged in Gabe’s belly as he’d watched McCree stare down into his bowl, knowing that the kid would return every meal Gabe had given him, every piece of clothing, every night spent on his couch, just to get back there, back to the sun.

Gabe glanced back, eyebrow raised, and McCree wrinkled his nose at him.

“Twice,” he turned back to the stove, listening to McCree grumbling and slumping down onto his hands. And Gabe could feel how calm he was getting, settling into a routine. He was certain he noticed every time Gabe didn’t hit him, every opportunity for violence missed. It made him sick to the stomach the way he sneered up at him sometimes, waiting for the strike.

A week back he’d lost McCree in the supermarket, told him to stick close, but he was so quiet when he wanted to be, and when Gabe had turned back, he’d been gone, just gone. He’d torn that supermarket apart looking for him, heart in his throat, trying to figure out how he’d break the news to Ana, how he’d explain that the kid had run, probably been kidnapped in the parking lot or frozen to death trying to sleep in the bus station, penniless and hungry and not taken care of.

Gabe had found him at the service desk, trying to describe his uncle to a concerned sales assistant, gesturing above his head to indicate height. Before he’d known what was happening his hand was back around his skinny wrist, and the kid was flinching, hard, staring up at him, eyes wide. Afraid. Afraid of him.

“Where the fuck were you?” His voice had come out of him like he was angry, and the kid had been looking at him like this was the end, like he could bid goodbye to his two front teeth. But it hadn’t taken long for his fear to morph into rage, nose twitching, yanking his wrist out of Gabe’s hand with all the strength he had in him and shrinking backwards.

“You kept walking,” McCree had snarled, “I couldn’t find you.”

They’d driven home in icy silence and the kid had waited.

Gabe had seen him waiting, face hard, shoulders set, waiting for an unjust revenge to be taken, knowing it would hurt, that he’d bruise. But Gabe wouldn’t do it, no matter the fright that had thrummed through him, the panic that had closed around his throat. Despite himself, he’d apologised, apologised for grabbing him like that, for yelling, his hands stuffed under his armpits, eyes averted, and the kid had looked at him like he’d sprouted another head. But he’d relaxed, shoulders tentatively lowering, as if Gabe had proven something to him, like something in his nature had become clear.

It had almost felt like trust, the way McCree had looked at him.

The kid rested his cheek on his palm, bent over the bench, lip curling.

“I haven’t even been shot once.”

Gabe looked back at him, stirring, running his tongue over his teeth. He could still feel the place where the second bullet had hit, the bad one, it wasn’t a clean scar. Maybe he’d show the kid one day, put the fear of god in him.

“I don’t recommend it, kid,” he murmured, rubbing the scar tissue beneath his shirt with one hand, McCree watching him, blinking up at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Hurts like a bitch.”

The kid hummed and licked his split lip. His bruises were starting to fade, getting yellowed around his face, the scratches starting to heal up too, his limp getting better. And Gabe still hadn’t asked him who’d done that to him, if it was something that happened a lot. But he seemed comfortable, settled, less jittery, less looking to flee.

The more time they spent together the more comfortable the kid seemed to get with him, the more comfortable he got with the kid. The longer he stayed the worse it became, this harsh feeling in his belly; the more familiar he became with McCree’s movements through the safe house, the more he worried he became that the cold might get him. That he might run, and Gabe wouldn’t notice, and he’d try to make it to the road, but it was so easy to lose in the dark and the trees were so thick, and he was such a skinny thing.

And then he’d just be gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gabe: *manhandles a traumatised teenager, yanking him roughly and controlling his movement*  
> Also Gabe: Why is this kid so angry all the time. 
> 
> McCree: *Is cute and mostly harmless*  
> Gabe: This is my? Son? I guess?


	3. Gabriel Reyes Pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lowkey, trigger warning for this chapter, there is a lot of swearing, nothing creative, but still. And also some violence and mentions of blood, and like, some people die. But no one we know. 
> 
> Also, I fucking finally made a McHanzo Tumblr which I've been meaning to do forever, cause I write them a lot, but mostly little stuff that I'd never publish here, so if you're interested check the bad boy out, https://spursandstars.tumblr.com

The thud came just after three in the morning, like a book falling off a table in another room, only detectable in the weighty silence of the night. He stared at his ceiling, the moon shining bright into his room, ears trained on the sound, on where the sound had been, on the absence that followed. There was nothing, he couldn’t even hear the faint sound of McCree snoring in the lounge room. He couldn’t even hear McCree… McCree?

He squinted at the ceiling, trying to figure out why that was odd, why that was important, before he gasped upwards, launching forward, covers thrown off, hissing profanity as he threw himself off the bed, grabbing his phone from the dresser and skidding out his bedroom door. He ripped out into the hallway, and down into the living room, slingshotting himself by the doorway, almost slipping on his socks, his eyes on the couch in a half second flat.

And it was so much worse than the supermarket, immediately, it was so much worse. At least in the supermarket the kid might have been able to steal something, at least there had been people around, someone who might have recognised a kid making bad choices and dragged McCree back to him.

He stared at the empty couch, the blankets strewn, everything exactly where it had been before, his duffle bag on the floor, stash of protein bars still hidden under the coffee table. Everything looked normal, and for a second Gabe tried to convince himself that he was just in the bathroom, in the kitchen, literally anywhere that wasn’t outside. But McCree didn’t take his revolver to the bathroom, didn’t take his hat, or his boots.

His heart plummeted into his belly.

“McCree,” he hissed into the dim darkness of the house, “McCree, you get back here, or so help me god…” he trailed off, he couldn’t find the words, couldn’t find the right sort of threat, suddenly certain that the sound he’d heard wasn’t something falling but something being closed as softly as possible, slipping out in to that deep, black darkness.

And suddenly he was dialling his phone and pulling on his boots, not even bothering to tie up the laces, movements frantic, heart beating up into his throat, grabbing his coat from the rack. Ana picked up on the third ring, just as he was yanking open the front door to scream into the night, hoping to guide him back.

“Gabriel, I do not have lo-”

“I lost the kid, Ana,” he cut her off, voice coming tight and desperate out of his throat, and he should have cared, but couldn’t work up the edge, not while McCree was out there, slowly freezing to death. The skivvy Gabe had last seen him in was one of the good ones, but it wouldn’t protect him from frost bite, wouldn’t keep him from getting lost. And the woods were so dark and deep and he wouldn’t survive till morning, not how he was dressed.

“You mean Jesse?”

“Who the fuck is Jesse? No, I mean McCree, he’s run away.”

He thrashed out into the night, boots hitting the snow, pulling his coat over his shoulders, phone trapped under his cheek, calling for him. He could already imagine how cold he was, the little shit didn’t have any fucking body fat to keep him warm, and he had no gloves, and his boots were coming away from their soles and fuck, he should have brought him that shit, gloves, new boots, he’d been so fucking stupid.

“What do you mean he’s run away? I thought you were doing well.” Her tone was accusatory, going straight down into the pit of accusations already sitting heavy in his stomach, the snarls he’d directed inwards. He cursed himself for a thousand different reasons, for not realising earlier that he fucking cared if the kid died, that he fucking minded if he lost a finger to frost bite, cared that no one had taken care of him when they should have done, that he’d already started moving to fill that void without even noticing. Like some sort of fucking sap. _I’m not asking you to be his dad, Gabriel._ Fuck. And it was tearing at him, burning through him, made him want to tear at his hair, get hoarse from screaming, knowing he should have locked the doors, shouldn’t have assumed he’d stay, should have handcuffed him to something, put a tracker in his oats or some shit.

“We _were_ doing good,” his voice came out of him strained, and already hoarse from wailing into the trees. “And I have no idea where he’s gone, and it is so fucking cold out here, Ana.” Gabe was already shivering, stepping through freshly fallen snow. And he had a good coat, and good boots, and fucking _muscle mass_ to keep him warm.

“Okay, okay, calm down. He is a resourceful boy, do not panic yet.”

“Too late!” He screamed at no one, “I’m already _fucking_ panicking.” He lowered the phone from his mouth to call into the woods around the house, “McCree! You better get back here! McCree!”

In the corner of his eye he caught movement, just from around the side of the house and his head swivelled around so fast he thought it might snap his neck. He started towards the corner at speed, swinging around it without a second thought, hearing Ana’s faint voice from the phone, limp in his hand.

“McCree, I swear, I’m gonna-” He stopped short, skidding to a halt.

A man roughly the size of a gorilla looked down at him, face covered in a thermal balaclava, eyes narrowed in the darkness.

“The fuck is a McCree?” He growled.

Gabe stared at him, taking a startled step back. All he managed to stutter out was “you aren’t?” before someone came from behind and hit him hard over the head.

He collided with the snow at the man’s feet to the sound of Ana calling for him, not knowing where the kid was, in sweats, so fucking cold, little shit.

…

Someone kicked him in the side and he groaned, rolling onto his back, breathing white puffs into the air. His head was pounding, eyes unfocused, a big light harsh stinging his irises, a flood light, reflected on the snow. Another balaclava, a man, looked down at him, nose crinkling, eyes narrow, Gabe shivering violently under his gaze, his teeth chattering with the cold, hands quivering inside his gloves. He felt dizzy, dazed, shoulders shaking, hands and feet tied with thick rope, and his head loose on his neck. The world swam.

“Where’s the boy?” The man squinted down at him, hands on his hips.

“What boy?” He gasped from the ground, trying to take ragged breathes through the cold, the snow, like trying to breathe blocks of ice into his lungs. Another kick came to his ribs, a bit harder this time, forcing a grunt out of him, forcing pain to bloom behind his eyes.

“The boy!” the face insisted, “No fucking witnesses, Reyes!”

“I don’t even know what a boy is,” he laughed, breathless, as though there was a hand tightening around throat, “what is that? Some sort of cat?”

The man sneered, and he knew that whatever was coming was going to hurt, but he was prepared for that, he was prepared for it to hurt a lot. It didn’t matter what they did to him, he didn’t want the kid dragged into this, he didn’t want them hunting for him, he didn’t want them tracking him down, didn’t want them hurting him. He’d rather they kill him here, on his back, in the snow, than start throwing seventeen-year-olds under the bus at the first baring of teeth.

The man reached towards him, thick gloves around thick hands, reaching down and yanking him up by the collar of his coat.

“Do you think this is a fucking joke?” 

“Kind of.”

The man broke his nose with one good punch, he felt the bone break, the veins rupture, the pain blinding, leaving him shivering, shuddering with the sudden explosion of agony on his face. It left him gasping, rasping, tears forming in his eyes, almost sobbing, trying to breath through the blood. He forced out a laugh, revelling in the fact that no one could do with a fist what had already been done to him with a gun, and he was  _never_ going to give up the fucking kid, wherever the fuck he was.

He spat blood into the man’s balaclava and he was thrown down, hard, rolling onto his side, barely managing to steady himself with his bound hands pressed into the snow. His head pounded, mouth full of blood, dribbling down his face. Before he could take a breath, thick hands to ahold of his shoulders, lifting and shoving his limp body until the back of his head hit the side of the house in a seated position and his eyes were blinded by pain and the floodlight shining directly onto them. He winced, barely able to keep his eyes open.

A finger was shoved into his face, the balaclava crouching over him to snarl.

“I swear to fucking god, Reyes, if you weren’t more valuable alive, I’d put a bullet through your brain right now.”

He laughed, bitter and fierce, bloody teeth bared.  

“You could try.”

The next hit came to his stomach, and left him dry heaving and starved for breath, forcing his lungs to expand, refill, doubled over. He stared into the glimmering snow, winter grass, just poking through, and tried to breathe through it, live through it. He rested his head back as he recovered, bound hands in his lap, sucking in blood and frozen air. Jack was going to be so pissed if he died here, bleeding into the snow with only a head wound and broken nose to show for it.

His eyes slipped closed as he listened to his assailant turning away from him, a second voice telling him to leave it, that the boy would be dead before dawn anyway. Not even a witness worth chasing. Gabe hoped, he prayed to any god that might listen, that he made it back to the road, hoped he would get picked up by some good-hearted stranger, given a warm meal, a good coat, a new pair of boots. That someone, literally anyone, might do that for him, take him in, give him a bed, keep him from the pointy edges of life.

Turmoil thrummed through him, squeezing his eyes closed, trying to feel in control, trying to force his brain into working, force his body into moving. Anything, anything to get him out of this jam, get him to the kid and keep him safe.

Something hit his cheek and his eyes shot open, head raising. His eyes whipped around him, too tired, in too much pain to figure out which direction it had come from. Around him, his several assailants ambled, paying no attention to him. It happened again, and his head swivelled to the left, squinting into the darkness.

And there, peeking out from behind the house, was the kid.

He was staring at him intently from under his hat and Gabe’s heart seemed to tear itself in two at the sight of him, the relief almost palpable, doubled by the horror that he was here. Gabe had been imagining him curled beneath a tree, imagining him in the heavy darkness, drowning in it, starving for warmth. But instead he peeked around the house, instead he came back to him, heeded warnings, intense eyes burning. He must have heard them coming, must have recognised the smell of violence in the air before Gabe had, must have hid, clever boy.

His brain was suddenly working a mile a minute as they stared at each other, the kid trying to communicate to him through facial expression alone, that and a vaguely panicked hand gesture. Not dead, not dead, not dead, not dead, his mind hummed, not dead, yet. And whatever this was, this violence, this attack, it was his, they were after him, it was his problem, his fuck up. And he sure as shit wasn’t going to drag down some piece-of-shit seventeen-year-old with him, he wasn’t going to give in without giving him the best shot he had.

“The truck,” he hissed, blood red spittle staining the snow, “Go!”

McCree chewed his lip at him, not responding, not quite, eyes flickering, and frustration bubbled up through him, baring his teeth, listening to his captors muttering to each other in the background, complaining about the cold, knowing that all it would take was a glance in their direction. Fear made revolutions in his chest, every part of him that didn’t shake with the cold was held so tense he was afraid his bones might splinter, twisting against his ropes. Gabe snarled at him, watching McCree’s face twist with anxiety. And he must have been so cold, his hands gloveless, only pyjamas on under his serape, only his hat to keep his ears warm.

_“Go!”_ He hissed, desperation leaking into his voice.

The kid gave him one more worried glance before he disappeared back behind the house, and Gabe let out the breath he’d been holding.  _He’s a resourceful boy_ , Ana had said, surely any resourceful little criminal worth their salt knew how to hotwire a truck, knew how to skid down the mountain and not stop till he crossed the state line. McCree had lasted this long, probably survived worse odds, and Gabe knew he had a hot and harsh will to live bursting through him, an inability to lie down and die in the cold.

He’d be okay, he tried to reassure himself, he was going to be okay.

From beyond his oncoming haze he heard the truck roar to life, heard his assailants hear it, the shuffle of feet, the hushed “the fuck is that?” followed by a louder “must be that fucking kid!” And a deluded sense of pride flushed his chest, warming him, because, yeah, it was that fucking kid. His fucking kid. Getting away. Smug satisfaction filled him, sitting in the cold snow.

He sat back, watching a few of his captors running around the side of the house, knowing that they wouldn’t reach him before he went screaming down the mountain, that they wouldn’t be able to shoot out the tires in the darkness. He waited to hear the sound of kid getting away, so much life left to lead, so much yet to be stolen, swindled. Beautiful little criminal that he was. He stared up into the darkness, the twinkling stars between the canopy of fir trees and he’d imagined worse deaths than this, at least he was outside, at least his killers were miserable, at least the kid was going to get away. At least he’d given him a good shot.

He waited for the sound of the accelerator, for the high rev of the engine. He waited. And waited.

And it never came, dread starting to crawl over his skin, like he was growing a frost.

Suddenly there was a loud crash and he flinched, shouting, screaming. There was a flash of white-hot light from around the front, a sudden spray of gunfire, more shots, more shouting, the sounds of a body hitting the snow, the crunch of frozen gravel under boots, yelling. And then nothing, like a light switch turned off, a swallowing silence settling over the snow, silken and sickening.

There was no sound.

And Gabe tried to convince himself that the gunfire he’d heard had been sporadic at best, panicked, tried to convince himself that the kid had to have at least have half a chance of surviving that, his body held tense and still, unbreathing, terrified. His guards were starting towards the front,throwing down their cigarettes, drawing their guns, eyes tight and fearful, and he watched them, mind working a mile a minute, heart thrashing around in his chest.

Before he could stop himself, his mouth was opening, and he was screaming into the darkness, screaming into the silence, hoping he was still there to hear it.

“McCree!” He screamed, “Just go! Just fucking go, McCree!  _Go!_ ” His voice was hoarse and one of the guards was starting towards him with a rag to shut him up, desperation clawing its way into his throat, screaming louder, “McCree, run! Just run! I’m not gonna be mad! I’m not-!” A gloved hand took a hold of his jaw, forcing his mouth open, rag ready, but suddenly the sound of the floodlight hitting the snow filled his ears, the breaking of the bulb, and suddenly they were plunged into a deep darkness.

For a moment they all were completely still, trying to readjust, all of them trying to figure out what was happening, what the plan was, who was in control, but his instincts took hold before his brain could keep up, his knee impacting with the guard’s groin in a half second flat. Gabe shoved him to the side, trying to keep his heart from bursting out his mouth, his mind working, his body moving. In the darkness there seemed to be a scuffle, panicked semi-automatic gunfire filling the air, shooting into the darkness hoping to catch the figure that crept there.

Before his eyes there was another bright hot flash, and for a half second, he caught sight of the kid, just for a moment, teeth gritted, face pulled taunt, bursting through the air. He watched a guard reach for him and felt the vibration as McCree’s wiry body hit the house beside him, the harsh impact, heard the ragged bark of pain. Gabe’s voice came rough out of his mouth, yelling for him, bound hands reaching, trying to catch a hold of his serape, as though he could contain this, protect him. But he disappeared back into the darkness just as his fingers found soft cloth and Gabe could hear the guards who had survived whatever had happened by the truck running back to them. More of them now, all feeling for each other in darkness, trying to get their bearings. 

“Where is he!?” Someone yelled. “Where is the little fucker?!” 

Somewhere in the darkness there was a gunshot, a body dropped, someone screamed.

Gabe’s heart thrashed around in his chest, screaming hoarse and harsh for him to “just fucking _run,_ McCree!” He was struggling to his feet, straining against his bondage, wedging himself against the house, as if there was anything he could do. He had no idea where anyone was, no idea where the kid was, if he was a dropped body, if he was bleeding to death just a few feet away, if he was hurt. Everything pained him, and he was having a hard time figuring out if it was the worry or the wounds.

His guards were yelling to each other in the darkness, trying to force their eyes into adjusting, trying to figure out who they’d lost. Just as they were beginning to keep track, there was another flash of light, harsh against his irises, and the kid burst forward from the shadows, his revolver catching the light, leaping, rabid and fierce, deliberate in his destruction. It was impossible to say how many he got, how many had been blinded by the flash, brutal.

He watched a silhouette struggling with a body, trying to catch flying wrists keep a hold of him before he fled back into the darkness, silent as the damned. A garbled scream came from Gabe’s throat, trying to distract them, keep their attention on him, give McCree as much of a chance as he could. He hopped forward on his bound ankles, trying to keep steady, more semi-automatic fire rounding off in his ears, at least four of them now still active, all thrashing around in the darkness, panicking.

Quick flashes of gunfire came from somewhere and his heart rattled around in his ribcage, trying to keep track of the kid. There was a loud scream, a man’s scream, in pain, in panic, almost childlike in its horror and he just managed to catch sight of McCree all twisted around one of the guards, his teeth bared and his revolver to his temple, snarling at the others, terror in his eyes, dealing out panicked violence, not raised to do anything else.

A hand came to Gabe’s arm, holding tight onto his bicep, almost ripping him off his unstable feet. His head swivelled to the left, eyes meeting that of his original assailant, staring up into his balaclava, just close enough that he could see the pale skin around his eyes, sneering down at him.

“Fuck you, Reyes, you and your kid.”

And suddenly the deadly end of an uzi was pressed against his forehead, right between his eyes, and the seconds slowed to hours inside of him, suddenly remembering that he’d had a plan, before the kid had come, back when he’d just been lost in the trees for a few months. He’d had a plan. He was going to invite Jack to come and stay with him, he was going to buy candles so that he could light them, they were going to have a week together, maybe two, no sneaking around, just the two of them in the woods. He’d had a plan, he’d wanted dinners, afternoons, breakfasts; the sex was a factor because it was fantastic, but some quiet, private part of him had wanted to fall asleep on the couch with him, wanted morning coffees, to sleep in a bed with him that wasn’t a bunk, wake up with his arms around him.

And Jack was going to be so mad at him, so mad at him, he’d been so clumsy, so careless. Thinking the cold might have saved him. Thinking that he was immune to a well-placed bullet. Thinking that anyone was going to let him get away with just a broken nose.

He blinked slowly and was certain it was about to be over, that he was about to be dead, a warm, orange glow wafting over him, blooming from behind the man, his brain lazy and dazed. The glow grew brighter and brighter, silhouetting the man, taking what little colour it had from his face, like a sunrise, sunset, the sun shining through the trees, finally reaching down into the forest after so many months away. From somewhere, a firm voice floated across him, _“it’s high noon,”_ it whispered, not quite familiar, almost comforting.

Gunfire went off in his ears and he closed his eyes, waiting for the puncture, waiting for the shot that would kill him, for the blood that would turn the snow red. Nothing came, the hand slipped from his arm.

All the bodies dropped, he heard them hit the snow.

And the light disappeared, and they were plunged back into darkness. He blinked his eyes open. And blinked again. There was nothing, only silence, only the dim shape of the trees, the twinkling stars, unable to make out any silhouettes, still in the quiet aftermath. Like a hurricane had swept through and left only one house standing, not ripped from its foundations. He let go of the breath he’d been holding, realising his heart was still pounding in his chest, his mind swirling, somewhere between high on adrenalin and collapsing from relief and blood loss.

“McCree,” he whispered into the darkness, not daring to move, “McCree, are you there? Mijo, if you're there, talk to me.” He couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper, like the dropped bodies were only sleeping, like they didn’t all have bullets through their brains. “Talk to me, kid, where are you?” He didn’t know how he’d save him if he’d taken a bullet, if he could carry him inside with his hands bound, but he’d try. He’d feel over everybody he could find if he had to, live out there in the cold until he found him, recovered him.

The kid appeared beside him, silent as the grave, slightly out of breath, hat gone from his head, serape still around his shoulders. He was shaking.

“I’m right here, boss,” his own voice came faint, quivering and vaguely familiar. Gabe gazed down at him.

“That’s a neat trick you got there,” he whispered as McCree’s pale hands reached for his ropes, his fingers untying them, head hunched, fear still tight in his spine, all the brutality gone from him, all his defences torn down, left bare and frightened. “I thought you didn’t have any bullets,” Gabe found himself murmuring. The kid huffed.

“I was  _lyin’_ , boss.”

A laugh came delirious out of him as his ropes came away and before he could think of what he was doing, his hands reached for the kid’s skinny shoulders, reaching for him in the darkness and pulling him close, wrapping his arms around him. He pressed his cheek into his hair, meeting cold snow and the smell of the shampoo they shared. For a moment McCree stayed stiff and startled against him, but he melted a second later, his lean arms wrapping around him on the inside of his coat, seeking his warmth, holding onto him tight, face pressed into his shoulder.

“You did good, mijo, you did real good,” he whispered.

McCree’s arms tightened around him, letting out a sniff, sucking in a shaky breath. And he must have been so scared. It didn’t matter how in control he was, didn’t matter how well he’d done, he was still a kid. And it was dark, and cold, and deadly, and it was okay that he’d been afraid. Gabe found himself stroking the back of his head, McCree’s shaking violent, all his terror coming out of him at once, half sobbing into his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he whispered into his hair, “I got you, I’m here.” McCree sobbed wordlessly into his coat, holding onto him. And he never would have expected this, not seeing him get off the bus, bitter and snarling. Weeping into his shoulder, all his distress shuddering though his body, refusing to run like he would have done that first night.

“Come on,” he murmured into the kid’s hair, “it’s cold out here.”

…

The kid slept on his shoulder, Gabe’s coat around his shoulders, all his injuries tended to, from his broken rib to his frightening body temperature, exhausted in the back of their ride to the airport, heading back to Gibraltar. Ana picked up immediately, and he tried not to shift too much, McCree drooling on his arm, hastily packed duffle back clutched to his chest, snoring.

“Gabe?” She only called him Gabe when she was actively concerned for his welfare. “They told me what happened,” her voice was soft, knowing that the safe house was his favourite, that he wouldn’t be able to go back there again. He sighed and stared out into the darkness where the dawn was just beginning to make itself known.

“I know,” he muttered, trying not to wake McCree, he’d need his sleep, “I’m just calling to let you know that I’m keeping the kid.”

For a long moment there was silence.

“What?” The softness was gone from her voice.

“I’m keeping the kid, he’ll work under me.”

“Gabriel, he is a recruit, he hasn’t been trained,” she was sounding exasperated, bothered.

“I’ll train him,” he pressed on, streets whipping past, “he’s got potential and he trusts me. You try to put this kid in a uniform and he’ll run the first chance he gets.” He could see it in his eyes, in his shoulders, knew that if he hadn’t been so frightened of the cold the kid wouldn’t have stuck around long enough to get to trusting him, would have run that first night. But in Gibraltar it was broad and hot, in Gibraltar there were fences that could get jumped, gate passes forged, equipment stolen and sold. And then he’d be gone, set loose on the continent, to get kidnapped, exploited, starved, whatever. At least on base, with Gabe, he’d have some structure, some security, a guaranteed meal, a roof over his head, might be able to do some good.

He heard her let out an irritated breath, as if she thought he’d be affected by that, as if they hadn’t been friends long enough for the effect to have worn off.

“And what makes you think he’s loyal to you?” She hissed, sounding annoyed and tired, tired of him already, just over the phone. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter what she thought, he was unmovable, this was what was important to him, this was how he’d repay his debt. 

“He saved my life. He could have run, I told him to run. But he didn’t.” There was silence, and he took a breath. “Listen, Ana, I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m keeping the kid and that’s final. I’ll make the arrangements, and if it all goes to shit, then I’ll take the wrap.”

She sighed.

“Fine, Gabriel, he’s yours,” he could imagine how she’d pinch the bridge of her nose, eyebrows tense, “But you better not screw this up.” 

He laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> McCree: *Is cute and definitely not harmless*  
> Gabe: Yeah, no, I've decided that this is my son. This is my son now, and I will train him and protect him and he will be mine.  
> Ana: Jesus. CHRIST. 
> 
> Gabe: *Is the first person to show him kindness in like seventeen goddamn years*  
> McCree: Is this... my dad? 
> 
> And again, find me on Tumblr at https://spursandstars.tumblr.com


	4. Jack Morrison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sad boi
> 
> A very sad boi, but also could be alternatively titled "a conversation that made me sad with my ex-lover's sort of son in a bar, by Jack Morrison."

A metal hand landed on the bar next to his glass, a familiar voice echoing from above, and he stilled like the barrel of a gun had been pressed to the back of his head.

“Two whiskies, please and thanks.”

In his line of work, he’d never once experienced a coincidence, and he highly doubted they were going to start occurring now. He kept his eyes down as the stranger sat next to him, perched with a stool between them. It was a kind of gift, that foot of space between their shoulders. He could turn down his head and pretend he hadn’t seen if he wanted to, walk away if he wanted to. But he was rooted to his seat, an anxious feeling crawling over his spine as he stared down at the ice cracking in his glass, listening to the stranger thank the bartender, the clink of two shot glasses worth of whiskey pushed towards him.

McCree had always had vices, more than most, but Jack tried to remind himself that a mean streak had never been one, no matter what he’d done, Jack had never doubted that his heart was in the right place, even when he’d been a bitter-eyed boy hiding under the brim his hat.

He didn’t know if it was the alcohol, or some distant hope that it would feel like going back, going back to the sunshine years, back to when Gabe had believed in saving kids and he’d believed in saving the world. But he let his eyes drift upwards. He met first the holster at his hip, the gun he hadn’t removed. There was a part of him that would have been heartbroken on his behalf if he’d lost it; weapons were never meant to last as long as McCree had carried his, but it was a part of him now, anyone could see that.

He then met the hat, placed on the bar beside his glimmering hand, bullet casings still lining the rim. He’d been masquerading as his ancestors for as long as Jack had known him, imitating the only honour he’d ever seen in the world; that of the Wild West novels of his childhood. The same way that Jack still wore his dog tags around his neck, hoping that they might carry him through. Hoping that they might find his body and know that he was trying to do something good, that he’d been honourable once. If they found McCree’s body in a ditch somewhere, they’d find Clint Eastwood, and him, G.I Joe.

His eyes lifted to his face, meeting the crows feet, formed soft around his eyes, his stubble, his bright eyes, and the canines that curled out of his mouth as he spoke to the bartender.

Jack’s stomach dropped.

He didn’t look like Gabe, no more so than he had before. Jack didn’t know why he’d been expecting that, but he had. He could see so much of Gabe in him, in the way he held his shoulders, slammed back his whiskey, the face he made when it burned his throat, all the little habits, the little gestures. Gabe had been the template when McCree had just been figuring out how to be a man, how a man holds himself, talks, stands, sits. There was so much of Gabe in him, but McCree just looked like himself, a bit older, a bit darker, a bit more battered, but his own.

He knew that McCree must have seen him watching, but he made no move to avoid his gaze, just let him remember.

He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t good to see him, good to see he hadn’t lost any more limbs, that he was still alive. He’d always harboured the secret worry that McCree was the most likely person he knew to die quietly in some small town with no one there to mourn him, no one there to tell him how proud they were, that he was a good boy. Gabe’s affection for the kid had always rubbed off on him. He couldn’t tell if it was just some left over sense of camaraderie, but he’d always felt that if they were to die, they should all die together, with a bang rather than a whimper, like they should have done in Switzerland.

He sighed and shook his head, holding onto his beer glass like it was the only thing keeping him from slipping off his barstool and curling up on the floor.

“What are you doing here, son?”

He sounded old, a little breathless, and he cursed himself for drinking so much.

For the first time, McCree looked at him, flashed him that boyish grin he’d always had, as though Jack couldn’t see the way his shoulders looked heavy, the way his grin lacked a bit of its bite, the way he sat hunched over his whiskey. The kid looked old, the kid looked tired.

But he smiled, and it seemed earnest, his eyes not quite sparkling, but almost pleased to see him.

“Can’t a man visit an old friend?” He drawled and it was impossible to say whether his accent had gotten softer or stronger, if he’d slipped back into it, or it had come to suit him so well that you hardly noticed. Jack felt his brow furrow.

“McCree,” his tone was almost chiding, not quite sharp. As though he had any authority over McCree anymore, as though the authority he’d had was anything but loyalty by association.

“Morrison,” McCree smiled back, as though it was the old days, as though they were young, as though by the time Gabe had bought McCree to base he hadn’t already been old. He sighed, head hanging down. There had been no reasoning with McCree then and there was no reasoning with him now, all he could do was pinch the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes closed, McCree laughing lowly beside him.

“How did you even find me?” He asked, exasperated.

When he’d died in Switzerland, he’d meant to die, and come out the other side someone new, someone unshackled, someone who could finally do some good, unburdened by the public eye. Instead, he’d come out scarred, more broken than he’d expected, disappearing into the smoke, because he couldn’t find it within himself to admit that he’d let something dark brew beneath his ranks, had possessed something and had lost it. He’d been in mourning, he was still in mourning, an old ache still sitting heavy in his ribs, a constant reminder that he’d had love once, and he’d been careless with it, had let it slip away. He’d meant to die for that, die in all ways except the heart still managing to beat on in his chest.

“Weren’t hard,” McCree said, shrugging his shoulders, sipping his whiskey, “In my experience, where there ain’t a body, there ain’t a death.” He let out a bark of laughter, bitter and old, bursting from his chest. Leave it to McCree to be the smartest person in the room.

“Did you go?” He couldn’t keep himself from asking.

“To what?”

“The funeral.”

There was a pause, not unpleasant, the pause of a man considering lying, asking himself if it was worth it, knowing Jack would know if he did.

“Not officially,” he ended up saying, “But yeah, I was there. Bit obvious you weren’t dead n’ all.”

Jack watched him out of the corner of his eye, and wondered why he’d come now. After all these years. He’d heard McCree was somewhere back in New Mexico, bounty hunting and trying to keep others from his own, back doing what he did best. The chivalrous robber, the man you’d regret to meet in a back alley, the highwayman his mother had been and his grandfather before that, going back to who he’d been before he met Gabe, just better at it.

A good thief and a good man, not as mutually exclusive as he’d first thought. He drank bitterly for it.

“At least I don’t still go by my real name,” he muttered into his glass. Beside him, McCree chuckled, leaning down on his hand.

“Morrison, you work with your solider I.D. number plastered across your back, yer might as well.”

He groaned.

“Shut up, McCree.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken so freely with another person, the last time a face had been familiar, a voice. He could still remember him on base for the first time, seventeen and nursing his wounds, back when he’d still been a few inches shorter than him and Gabe. He remembered the way he’d stuck close to Gabe’s side, tucked under his wing, distrusting of anyone and everyone. But he’d grown, he’d gotten comfortable, smiled more. He’d put on weight, gotten big and strong, stayed big and strong. Jack could remember thinking that if anything happened to him in the field, Gabe was going to loose his shit.

But he’d lived. Lived a lot longer than some deadbeat ex-con trout in a hat had any right to.

And he was gladder for it, glad that of all the things that had made Gabe loose his shit, it wasn’t McCree lying on a cold steel table, too far gone to be recovered. He was sure of nothing, except that the world needed men like Jesse McCree. People who were still trying to be good in a world of violence and chaos.

“So,” McCree began, bent over his whiskey, “I hear they’re getting the band back together.”

He stilled, eyes shooting up. He met McCree’s gaze, smooth and steady, and this must have been why he’d come, why he’d finally shown his face; the message that must have been burning hot in both of their back pockets.

He’d always figured that the beginning of the end was McCree barging into his office one morning, putting his gun and his hat down on his desk, and collapsing into one of his office chairs. It had taken him a long time to speak, still dressed in his Blackwatch uniform; he couldn’t have gotten back from a mission more than an hour before, his eyes sleepless and his shoulders slumped, pushed passed some limit.

By the time he’d spoken, Jack had returned to his paperwork, to the quiet bureaucracy of the morning.

“I think…” he’d said finally, his expression distressed, not looking at him, “I think there’s somethin’ wrong with Gabe,” he’d whispered. And Jack had never known a loyalty like McCree had felt for Gabe, never known something so strong, so devoted, so willing to lay everything he had down at the man’s feet. Even then, he’d been able to see the pain it caused him to say such a thing out loud, made him sit straight in his chair, knowing that it must have been bad if McCree was coming to him about it, very bad.

“What do you mean, son?” He’d tried to make his voice soft, tried to be comforting, hoping that he wouldn’t loose his nerve and flee, not wanting him to think that he’d done wrong to voice his concerns, come to him. McCree had run his hands over his face.

“He’s gettin’ worse,” he’d said, “I… I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t sleep, barely eats, he’s yellin’ more and more, killin’ folks more and more,” McCree’s eyes had lifted, searching his, appealing to him, begging for help, for this weight to be taken from his shoulders, “Genji's noticed too, I think somethin’ awful’s happenin’ to him.”

Jack had told him that he was glad he’d come, that he’d figure something out, that they’d figure something out together. That if the time came, if this all got too out of hand, they’d do what they had to do.

They’d do what they had to do, he’d said it like a promise even then.

He’d told the kid to keep coming to him, keep him updated, try to control Gabe as best he could. It was imperative that McCree control this, try to keep it under his hat. McCree had agreed, kept him informed long after Gabe stopped talking to him and his stories only got more and more horrific, his expression more and more distressed by the man he’d saved all those years before, by the fact that he wasn’t that man anymore.

And then he’d been gone, quarters empty, belongings gone, car stolen, left a note saying he was running and ran. McCree had rarely been anything but straight forward. Gabe had never spoken to him about it, but he’d heard the reaction from others, the way Gabe had torn his quarters apart in seething rage, drank until he couldn’t stand anymore, hissing and threatening anyone he passed. Betrayed by his closest ally, by the kid who owed him everything. The loss of McCree had cut him deep, his fits of rage only getting worse the longer went by that the kid didn’t come back.

And he never did come back.

It pained him to think of it, that period in his life, in their lives, made him want to bury his head in the sand, the way he’d handled it, how long he’d let it go on before he intervened.

Beside him McCree kept his facade up.

“Are you going back?” Jack found himself asking.

McCree shrugged, and raising his finger for more whiskey, eyes only on the bartender.

“Probably not.”

Jack almost fell out of his seat.

“The fuck do you mean probably not?”

McCree flinched, bristling, eyes suddenly flickering over to him.

“Probably not is what I mean. I ain’t goin’ back.”

The bartender did not linger as he placed McCree’s third whiskey down in front of him, sensing that there was a conversation going on that he didn’t need to hear. Jack frowned at him, hands tight around his drink, shoulders taunt.

“Why not, Jesse?” His voice came out firm, disapproving, as though he had the right to lecture anyone on anything any more. He was just some backwater vigilante with his solider I.D. on his back. “They’ll need you, they’ll need everyone they can get.” He watched McCree’s face twist, baring his teeth at nothing, holding himself together like he was made of barbed wire, this conversation clearly not going the way he’d planned. “You know Talon’s back in business, if someone doesn’t stop them, they won’t be stopped-”

“Christ, Jack,” McCree cut him off with a hiss, “Don’t pretend we don’t both know who’s playin’ Talon’s headliner at the moment,” he snapped and Jack was taken aback. McCree’d been always been quick to anger, defensive, but he seemed more annoyed than anything, frustrated, raking a metal hand through his hair. The same way Gabe used to do.

Jack shrunk solemnly back into his stool.

He’d seen the news, read the police reports, he knew those movements, those tactics, knew him by his shoulders, by his posture, the way he held his guns as they fired. McCree must have known too, probably better than him. For him the fall had been fast, one second he had him, he’d been good and true and honest and charming, and the next he hadn’t been speaking to him. He’d always suspected that for McCree, the fall must have been slower, started earlier, ended later, at first just the little details of a man coming apart at the seams, half way down the cliff before he’d even realised, watching him go from noble to unhinged, slipping away from him bit by bit.

If their positions had been switched, McCree watching from afar, the first to be booted from good graces, and him, having to watch from up close, the final shoe to drop, watching Gabe bend all out of shape, become someone else, he was certain it would have broken him. Wasn’t certain that it hadn’t already broken McCree.

When he looked back, McCree was seventeen again, expression vulnerable, a new scar just above his eyebrow, pale and raised against this skin. He had the body of a man, broad shouldered and strong, made of tough stuff, hard faced, firm eyed. But Jack could see that it was the kid in him that bore the real scars, the Deadlock scars, the Overwatch scars, the scar reserved only for Gabe; the man he’d wanted to be when he’d been learning what a good man looked like. He was in pain, in mourning the same way Jack was, having lost something dear to him, not quite sure it was worth going on if he was just going to spend the whole time looking forward to meeting Gabe on the other side.

McCree looked across at him, eyebrows together, eyes despairing. Such a kid he was.

“I can’t, I can’t fight him, Jack,” his voice almost quivered, “I think that’s why I left… I shoulda killed him like you told me to, I knew where he was headed, but I-I just… I just couldn’t.”

They both looked down at their glasses.

Despair rolled through him, horrified at by the weight he’d put on McCree’s shoulders back then. He should never have made it out like Gabe was McCree’s responsibility, like it was all on him to control him, control whatever it was he was becoming. It was never his responsibility, not his fault. McCree had been a good man, was still good man, and whatever Jack had lost, had been taken from McCree twice over, ripped from his grasp right before his eyes.

The boy had lost the only man who had ever looked out for him, and Jack had acted like it was on him to get him back.

“I’m sorry, son,” he murmured, “It wasn’t your fault.”

McCree was silent, the foot of space still between them.

He remembered once, he’d found McCree hiding in his office, going through his stuff while Gabe had thrashed around the base looking for him, wanting his head for something. He’d still been a kid then, just on nineteen, still a bit skinny, but less so. Taller, more comfortable in his skin. He’d already found the bottle of scotch he kept in his desk drawer, going over some papers with a curious eye. He’d been clever to come, knowing it would be the last place Gabe would think to look, but he’d startled when Jack had entered, the same way Jack had startled back, staring at each other.

He’d never liked how Gabe had started training him before he was even eighteen, never liked how they’d lied about his age. It hadn’t felt right, getting a kid comfortable with killing before he was even grown. So he’d said that it was okay, that he was always welcome if he needed to get away, talk to someone when he couldn’t talk to Gabe, fresh pair of eyes and all that, one country boy to another.

He’d tried his best to be good to him.

It didn’t make up for the mistakes he’d made, but it was something.

“Do you know who’s going?” He asked softly. There was no need to focus on the soft spots, he could distract if that was what was needed, if that was what would keep McCree in his seat.

Plus, McCree had always had a knack for intel, he liked to know things, to keep track of things, always had. It was proven by the fact that he’d known Jack was alive, had clearly kept tabs.

McCree grunted into his whiskey.

“Uh, Lena, Angie, Genji. Genji an’ his mentor or whatever, his brother too-”

“You mean the brother that tried to kill him?” Jack raised an eyebrow.

“Thats the one,” McCree continued, “Reinhardt, Torb, his girl, uh, Ana too, but she’s being real cagey ‘bout it.”

“I though Ana was dead,” he mused, not even bothering to make his lie believable.

“Ya did not,” McCree chided, “Ana Amari isn’t capable of death and you know it.”

“Solid point.”

He could feel himself getting tired, just thinking of it.

“Why not you, Jack? Why haven’t you answered?”

When he looked over McCree’s eyes were back to being steady, hard. He could only shrug.

“I never told you I wasn’t going back.”

McCree looked at him, eyebrows furrowing, almost affronted, before he shifted back as if he’d shown too much, head hanging down, staring into his glass.

“You never told me anything,” came the muttered reply, and he could have guessed that was more a statement of the past than of the present. But he was right, Jack never told him anything, never told him that he was seeing the same stuff he was, that every time Gabe lost his temper on a mission the report landed on his desk, that every time McCree bore the brunt of Gabe’s rage, he saw it and he was sorry.

That he too wished that they could go back.

He clutched his glass, McCree clutching his own.

“I have to go back,” he swallowed thickly, voice half-breath, “I don’t want anyone killing him but me.”

For a long while they were silent, McCree didn’t argue and he didn’t insist. Of all the people in the world to understand, McCree would understand the most, hear him the clearest. They drank together in silence, the bitterness easing between them. Maybe he’d apologise, one day. Apologise for his failures, the ways he’d failed to heed McCree’s warnings, too wrapped up in his own doomed romance to notice that Gabe was more of a danger to the world than to him.

But he was done running, he was done hiding, cleaning up backstreet crime as though that would make up for the injustice he’d allowed to bloom, as though Gabe wasn’t out there somewhere, undoing all his work ten-fold. He couldn’t live like this, couldn’t live out the small town demise. If he was going to die, he wanted to die with purpose, wanted to die with a bang, wanted to die trying to take something back, rebuilding. He’d broken the old Overwatch, he’d run it into the ground, the least he could do was try to put it back together again, put it back together better, with better people, better structures, finally do some good.

He drank back the last inch of beer and set his eyes firmly on McCree. He looked miserable. He looked like exactly who he was going to need if they were going to be able to fix anything. A good thief and a good man. That was what they’d need.

“Jesse,” he addressed him firmly. McCree’s eyes lifted to him. “Come back to Gibraltar with me.”

“Jack, I-”

Jack cut him off with a hand gesture.

“Don’t argue with me son,” Jack levelled him was a hard gaze, hoping it might still work. McCree pressed his lips together at him. “This is important. I can see that you're tired, and it's not your fault.” Before he could school himself, he was reaching out to him, his hand landing on his shoulder, closing the foot of space between them, connecting them as though they weren’t already inexplicably tied, “But you’re in this story whether you like it or not, and we have a ways to go yet.” He could see McCree waning, almost collapsing in on himself. And he knew that this was hard, that whatever McCree was doing here, it wasn’t to hear this. But hear it he would. “I won’t make you fight him, and you don’t have to, but I am going to make you come back to Gibraltar. We’ll keep your name off the paperwork, no rank, no position, he won’t ever know you’re back on side if you don’t want him to.” The kid seemed to shrink down into his shoulders, onto he bar around the last whisper of his whiskey and Jack squeezed his shoulder. “Isn’t that what you came here for? To find out if going back counts as betraying him?”

McCree rubbed at him mouth, eyes pinned forward, hardening, building back his defence brick by fucking brick. The same way Gabe used to do, only letting so much softness out. 

“No,” he said slowly, “I came ‘cause I heard some folks were after your head, and way back, way back he told me that one of my jobs, was to keep the shit from Jack Morrison, hell or high water.” He stood, slapping a few notes down on the bar, shrugging off his hand. He pressed his hat to his head, finally looking at him. “So here I am, job done.”

He sounded bitter, looked old, eyes narrow, something of a snarl on his face.

“It doesn’t,” Jack found himself saying as he turned away, “he’d want you doing good, it's what he always wanted for you.” McCree gave him one last glance, mournful, mouth turned down, before he turned and walked out the door. Nothing could make him stay if that wasn’t what he wanted, nothing could hold down a wayward McCree.

Jack left not long after, his taste for self-pity and alcohol run dry, noticing that McCree had left enough money for the both of them, knowing he’d be nowhere Jack might look for him. He found the bodies out the back, three of them with mean looks to their faces and bullets through their brains. He left them there, slunk back to his hotel room.

McCree would find him when he was done thinking, would find him when he was ready. Until then, he’d wait. He’d never played such a keen roll as Gabe or Ana, but he’d been there, and they’d known each other for a good long time and he’d never once doubted that the man Jesse McCree had become was a good man.

If there was good to be done, he’d do it. Eventually.

…

They stood together on the runway of the local airport, McCree’s hat pulled low over his eyes, duffle bag over his shoulder, tension thick around him. Lena was coming to get them in the orca, wouldn’t be long now, happy that they could both be picked up together, Jack watching him from a foot back. Gabe would want him to take care of his boy, make sure he didn’t do anything stupid, make sure he ate well, and was loved and cared for. Gabe would want him safe and he’d be safe in Gibraltar, doing good in Gibraltar.

“He loved you,” he found himself saying, McCree turning to look at him, “he really did, thought of you as his own. I don’t know if he ever told you that.” McCree’s eyes drifted down, a sort of sadness to his shoulders, both of them still in morning for a man still technically alive.

“Thanks Jack,” he muttered, his face twisted, itching to run, Jack could see it in him. “He… He loved you too.”

He smiled, no matter how the statement hurt. Because, yeah, Gabe had loved him, he’d loved Gabe, they’d whispered it a thousand times against each other’s skin. And he was never going to get that back. Gabriel Reyes was the great love of his life and he was never going to get that beauty back, the life he could have lived. And Gabe had loved the kid and the kid had loved him. And the boy was never going to get that back either.

But they could do their best to stop anyone else from loosing the things that loved them, blessed with a very particular skill set, this was what they could give, him and Gabe’s boy.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack: A wise man once said 'we have shared trauma'
> 
> Jack: what's a little more, right?
> 
> McCree: what's a little more.
> 
> And then they just fucking cry into each others arm because they are the only people in the world to understand the others pain.
> 
> And again, find me on Tumblr at https://spursandstars.tumblr.com


	5. Hana Song Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does everyone get a part two? Have I lost control of this format? Has this taken on a life of its own? 
> 
> Who's to say.
> 
> Could be alternatively titled, "These two guys I work with are the only people who are nice to me and I think they're my dads now??? By Hana Song"

Fierce fluorescence bloomed around her as she resurfaced, bright on her stinging eyes, slowly blinking away the sleep like a sobering drunk. She could still feel the remnants of concrete dust in her lungs, still see the splintered light shining through the rubble, but the ceiling that looked down on her was familiar. Its cracked tiling panels, the musty smell of laundry detergent and antiseptic filling her nose, it was almost comforting, breathing it in, the haze of her own mind soft and distant. She floated in sheets, carefully tucked in, arranged so that she would wake up comfortably, dignified. A kind of care.

“Well, me oh my,” came a dry voice, almost impersonating himself, “If it ain’t Hana Song, back to the land of the living I see.”

Her eyes found him without her head even needing to leave the pillow, sitting in the chair beside the bed, dark circles under his eyes, hands knitted over his stomach, down to his bare essentials. He looked annoyed, annoyed with her. She could still see his face from before, his hand wrenching away a piece of rubble, his eyebrows together, dust smeared on his cheek. He’d come when she’d called, when she’d gasped into the com that she needed him, that she was in over her head, couldn’t save herself.

He hadn’t looked annoyed then, he’d looked terrified.

“Are you mad at me?” She whispered. He set her with a hard gaze, barely moving from his seat.

“Well, I’m not impressed.”

Her gaze drifted back on the ceiling, and she felt like crying.

He’d carried her, pulled her from her ruined mech, wrapped her in his serape. She remembered that it had smelt like honey and whiskey, remembered her cheek leaning against his chest plates, his hurried steps trying not to jostle her. Came exactly like she’d asked him to.

She remembered watching him buckle his holster to his hip back in the Orca before the mission had started, talking in a low voice to Hanzo, the archer, the older Shimada, grinning down at him. She remembered thinking that the missions McCree got sent on usually went well, thinking that she probably didn’t have anything to worry about, even less so with Hanzo there. McCree had smiled at her when he’d seen her watching.

She heard him sigh from somewhere outside her periphery, heard him hunch forward, his mismatched hands coming to her own, his thumb rubbing across her skin,

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he murmured, “I don’t mean to be harsh, you just gave me a real good fright is all.” She glanced at him and his face was earnest, his sleepless eyes clear. He squeezed her hand, offered her a small smile and she was almost comforted, trying to blink away her tears.

“I... I didn't mean to go out so far...” she trailed off, the words leaving her, knowing that she lay in this bed for no good reason. He’d told her to stick close, standing next to Commander Morrison, told her that they were going to do this together. Instead she’d gone ahead, set herself up for disaster, brought a roof down on her own head, whimpered into the com so that he’d come for her. He’d told her not to mess with the explosives, that they were delicate, complicated. She’d figured they couldn’t be any more complicated than something she hadn’t handled before. She been wrong, ended up trapped under the concrete that fell from the ceiling, her mech half collapsed with her inside. The last thing she remembered was Hanzo’s smooth voice washing over her from within McCree’s arms, a cool set of knuckles coming to her cheek as if to check her temperature, her nose buried in McCree’s serape.

“Is she alive?” He’d asked from somewhere high above her.

“Well, she ain’t dead,” McCree had whispered back, his voice strained, tight. After that she’d drifted, knowing she’d either wake up back in the medbay or not at all.

McCree rearranged her pillows for her when she tried to sit up, bent over the bed, propping them up behind her back as if he knew that every movement exhausted her, misery weighing her down; her eyes watery, her control frail.

“You’re alright, darlin’,” his human hand came to her hair as she settled, patting her head as if she was a kid, affectionate, comforting. She craved it, leaned into it when she could, so starved of contact, some assurance that she was loved and cared for in such a cold place as this, the Watchpoint. He smiled softly at her as he sat back, understanding her distress, knowing that she was a fragile thing, that they all could be sometimes, more so in a medbay bed.

She opened her mouth as the door did, her eyes darting to Hanzo suddenly standing in the doorway, not having knocked, tray of coffees in his hand. For a moment his eyes skipped over her entirely, already on McCree, already half way through his sentence.

“Jesse, I-” He zeroed in on her, blinking in surprise. She could almost see him building himself back up, schooling his expression and standing straight, shoulders setting and eyes going steady, suddenly cold and still. “Miss Song,” he addressed her formally, bowing slightly, “it is good to see that you’ve awoken.”

And he was familiar to her also.

At first he’d been nameless, just another face, another name, another set of deadly skills. But he was comfortable now, unique the same way McCree was, prone to his own brand of silent care. She remembered once, she’d dragged McCree out of bed to console her, middle of the night, knocked on his door, needing love, security, some reassurance that there might only be violence now, but there might come peace some time in the future. Instead it had been Hanzo, dressed sweats and a flannel she was certain wasn’t his, hair down, his eyebrow raised, the most unraveled she’d ever seen him. McCree had appeared behind him, arm around his neck, falling over him, sleepy and squinting down at her.

They’d invited her in, taken one look at her watery eyes, her hands on her elbows, the way she was trying to make herself small, and offered her the inside of McCree’s quarters, warm and human, closing the door behind her. McCree had sat with her on his couch, held her while she cried, stroking her hair, promising that she wasn’t a bad person for wanting to go home, for not wanting to fight anymore, for missing her family, the food, the sound, the soil.

Hanzo had slipped wordlessly into the background, returning when she was done weeping, setting a pair of chopsticks and a bowl of steamed rice down on the coffee table, dressed in fried pork belly, vegetables and kimchi. Comfort food, from her home, of her childhood, to ease her soul. And they didn’t once offer her an explanation, just let her sleep on their couch, bidding her goodnight and ambling off back to the bedroom with their arms around each other’s waists, yawning, murmuring to each other.

In thanks, she never told a soul what she’d seen.

She remembered that Hanzo had recovered her from the rubble as well, remembered his face hovering above her as McCree’s had, remembered his voice, telling McCree that there was nothing they could do for her here, that they needed to go. He looked as tired as McCree did, swaying into the medbay room, pressing the door closed behind him, smelling like coffee and sugar cane. He came to stand by the bed, McCree taking the coffee he offered, holding it to his chest, smiling up at him, Hanzo’s hand on his shoulder.

She watched Hanzo’s hand give McCree’s shoulder an almost imperceptible squeeze before he moved away from his side, taking a moment to place the cardboard tray in the bin, before he took the chair on the other side of her bed, crossing one leg over the other, coffee in his lap. They were looking at her with a kind of exhausted fondness, so strong that it nearly knocked her over, pinned from either side, trapped under their collective gentle gaze. She felt tears well in her eyes as she came to terms with it, how much she had almost lost.

She’d been so frightened, she’d really thought that the darkness of the rubble would take her this time, that they wouldn’t find her, that McCree wasn’t good for his word. In the delirium of exhaustion and blood loss she’d been so certain that she’d died in sacrifice of nothing, that there was no light at the end of this tunnel, that there would be only a deep darkness from here on in, that she too might become the concrete, cold and grey and dead.

“Aw, Hana, darlin’, it’s alright,” she heard McCree croon as she looked down at her hands, golfball in her throat, eyes wet, her vision blurring. She felt his human hand come to her forearm, warm on her scratched skin. “You’re doin’ fine, it's happened to the best of us.”

Hana found herself glaring at him through her tears, almost angry that all he could offer her was a lazy lie. It’s happened to the best of us? She’d detonated a bomb directly against a load-bearing wall. He laughed at her, leaning back, sipping his coffee.

“What?” He gazed at her, blinking lazily, “you think I haven’t done stupider shit?” She sniffed, her doubt showing on her face. He must have seen it because he didn’t even wait for a response, forcing breath out through his nose, putting his boots up on the bed. “Alright, fine,” he grumbled, almost an act, a distraction, “you asked for it.”

Hana found herself sinking into her pillows, her misery quiet in her chest, sniffing, somewhere between wanting to wallow in self-pity and hoping that McCree really had done something dafter.

“Okay,” he began, “so I didn’t know how to swim til I was, til I was twenty five I think-”

Hana cut him off.

“I don’t think that counts as doing something stupid, McCree.”

“Hey, hey, hey, let me finish, it gets worse.”

Beside her Hanzo hummed in agreement, leaning back in his chair, intrigued, watching McCree take a large sip of coffee as if he needed to build the courage to tell the rest of the story.

“So anyway, because I’m a prideful piece of shit I never told anyone that I couldn’t swim for ages, didn’t want them to think less of me. I mean,” he gestured vaguely, “I grew up in the desert, weren’t many opportunities for learnin’ or nothing. So I don’t mention it, until, of course, I’m twenty five, midway through a mission, and I get pushed off a goddamn dock into the goddamn Atlantic-fuckin’-ocean.” Beside her Hanzo let out a low chuckle, showing his teeth, looking at McCree with such steady affection that it took her breath away. It was rare to see him show any emotion at all, let alone endearment, charm.

She grinned at the way he smiled, at the way McCree smiled back, quiet delight starting to bubble through her. That it was her, that she was the one they let in on their secret.

“So anyway, I’m the coldest I’ve ever been in my entire life and sinkin’ like a stone, thrashin’ about in the water, panicking just like they tell you not to. The only reason I don’t drown is because my commandin’ officer noticed I wasn’t coming up, and now that he thought about it, he ain’t never seen me swimin’ before. So he dives in after me, drags me out by the scruff of my neck, but not before I’ve got saltwater in my lungs for the first time and just about _blue_ with cold. Never really did recover, he certainly didn’t forgive me very quick.”

Hana was staring at him, at the twinkle in his eye, knowing that he had her beat, and despite herself, she felt a little better, sniffing and wiping at her eyes, Hanzo grinning in that hidden way that he did, looking at McCree like he’d hung the sun, lit the sky each morning. And she could imagine it happening, could imagine him at twenty five, falling into the Atlantic, hat gone from his head, plunging down into the sea, only to be scooped out again by some faceless figure, dragged back to shore. The same way McCree had done for her, come to get her from the rubble.

“What did your commanding officer say?” She whispered.

McCree shrugged.

“Wrapped me in a shock blanket and yelled at me for about five hours straight, only stopped when Morrison him to. Spent the next summer teachin’ me how to swim til I could go from one side of the beach to the other a half dozen times before I got tired,” he smiled at her, “and he said, out loud, straight to my face, he said,” McCree sat forward, pulling his boots from the bed and sticking out his finger in impersonation, a half-angry snark on his face “McCree, he said, McCree you are the single _dumbest_ person I have ever met.”

“He was right,” Hanzo purred from across the bed, eyes half aflutter, looking at him with such fondness, such adoration it seemed difficult to believe he felt anything else. McCree nodded solemnly across from him.

“I know.”

And where she’d seen them all built up for her benefit, McCree sitting at her bedside, hard faced and frowning, Hanzo at the door ricocheting from a soft voiced _Jesse_ to a cold and distant _McCree_ , she could now see them breaking back down, shifting back, comfortable with her, with her and her medbay room. She’d seen them with the others, in the rec room, in briefings. And it was nothing like this, nothing adoring in their eyes, nothing soft. Partners, professionals, perhaps not even friends.

Beside her Hanzo sat back in his seat, setting his shoulders and licking his lips, gazing at McCree.

“I have done things… of that genre myself,” he said, McCree’s grin widening at him.

“Well,” Hana found herself whispering, “go on.”

He nodded, pressing his lips together as though halfway between mildly surprised that she wanted to hear it and mildly surprised that he’d offered to tell it.

“When I was a boy,” he began, “I locked Genji in a storage cupboard. As a joke, of course,” he gestured as though he was brushing a fly from his brow, nose in the air, “unfortunately, I consequently forgot that I had done so, and after a few hours my parents commenced a full scale search, including threatening all rival crime families in the area, in fear that he had been kidnapped.” He smiled, almost a touch of mischief to his usually cold eyes, “only to discover him inside the storage closet the next morning, dehydrated but otherwise unharmed,” he shrugged, “he, of course, ratted me out immediately.”

McCree laughed, unbridled joy blooming on his face, delighted, enraptured, some combination of the two. Not to be out done, wrinkled his nose and opened his mouth.

“I once forgot to load my gun before a mission, but I realised way too late to do anything about it. So I panicked and just threw it real hard at a fella. Knocked him out.”

Knowing a challenge when he saw one, Hanzo sat forward like a cat looking at a mouse hole.

“I once borrowed an arms dealer’s pet dog and had a manhunt after me for three days straight.”

McCree grinned wickedly.

“When I was in Deadlock, one of the guys thought I was tryin’ to make a move on his missus, but I was actually just trying to steal her chilli recipe so that I could impress a boy who said he liked cookin’.”

“I once accidentally poisoned the wrong mark.”

“We were once on a mission and I got so drunk I stumbled into what I thought was my room but was actually the bedroom of the Ambassador of Norway. Slept a few hours in his bed before I realised.”

“Once, instead of following through on a job I had been hired to do, I simply turned my employer into the authorities and left the country.”

“Are you guys, like, not good at being adults?”

Their eyes blinked to her, as if they’d gotten so wrapped up in their game they’d forgotten she was there, on her mountain of pillows, in her hospital bed. Hanzo’s smile turned soft and McCree grinned at her.

“Naw, darlin’, we’ve just been alive a lot longer than you have, you do somethin’ enough times and the fuck ups tend to accumulate is all.”

Hanzo nodded, humming in agreement, their game settled, not knowing who had won, knowing it didn’t matter.

“And it is important to remember, Miss Song, that with each mistake, care also grows, lessons are learnt,” Hanzo’s smooth voice wafted over her, chiming in, “soon they will be lesser and father between.” 

They smiled at her, almost in unison, tired eyes trained on her, tried and tested, but seemingly glad that she had not drowned in the rubble, that she’d been found, had woken up.

And she was glad too.

“Thanks, guys,” she whispered, staring down at her hands. “I really appreciate it, I do.”

“It ain’t nothing, darlin’,” McCree laughed, “just you wait til Morrison hears you’re awake. The man’s been pulling out his hair.”

She laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> McCree: *Is a good dad to Hana*
> 
> Hanzo: I'm fucking this man tonight.


	6. Hanzo Shimada Pt.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I consider this a McHanzo fic, and it has taken me a grand total of six chapters to actually start McHanzo-ing. Hope it's worth it. 
> 
> Enjoy. 
> 
> (Also this is a pre-Hana shenanigan)

He saw the Peacekeeper catch the light as a shot rattled off, the gold barrel glimmering in the darkness, watched a shadow fall a half second later, an unlucky guard trying and failing to flank the group. The burst of gunfire made him flinch, his stomach tightening, anxiety rattling through him as he waited for the sound of the alarm, for running footsteps, knowing that it was something delicate they were trying to do, something that could not afford warfare.

But nothing ever came.

He was too far away to hear the sing of the metal as McCree reloaded, but he watched it happen through his binoculars, McCree’s eyes raised to his gaggle of hostages, wide eyed women and children, looking at him as though he was an agent of divine intervention, as though it was him who had heard their prayers. At every dropped body, at every ringing shot, he turned, face twisted, and apologised for what he had to do, for what they had to see, as if the way McCree did it was anything ugly. But he tried his best to protect them, to keep the violence quick and merciful, to make the forgetting come easier once this was over.

They walked with no flashlight, in a single file line, holding onto each other’s shirt sleeves, sounding off every now and then to make sure there was still the same number as before. Hanzo watched the group from above, running along the rooftops of the buildings they slipped between in the dead of night, quiet and still. He cursed himself every time an assailant got close enough that McCree had to deal with them, that he’d been careless, hadn’t taken them down earlier.

He watched McCree stop in his tracks from above, watched his hand rise to his ear, the hostages halting behind him, tripping over each other in the darkness, and Hanzo braced for the sound of his voice.

“You seein’ me?” 

Hanzo watched his lips move through the binoculars, heard his soft voice in his ear, the hostages jittery in their sudden stillness, children usually so boisterous were made quiet and nervous, feeling the tension in the air. He admired their instincts for self-preservation and tapped his com.

“Rooftop to your rear left.” 

McCree’s silhouette turned, hand raising to his hat to keep it affixed to his head as he looked up. He waved when he saw him and despite himself, Hanzo raised his hand and waved back. The more he partnered with McCree the more he found himself returning his strange gestures. He found himself almost familiar with them, comforted by them. Partnership came more naturally with him than it did the others, so much so that it was almost a relief to look down at the roster and see McCree’s name next to his own, knowing that he could expect nothing more than he’d expected the last time and the time before that, uncomplicated and serene.

McCree turned back to the darkness. 

“You got a clue what’s ahead?” 

Hanzo was already nocking the arrow. They had a rhythm, he knew that McCree saw as good in the dark as he did in the light, but even he couldn’t see around corners, couldn’t see what might be hiding in the adjacent laneway, through the narrow passage they’d have to get through. He aimed and the arrow landed a few feet in front of his boots. McCree didn’t flinch, but the hostages behind him did, frightened gazes flickering to his rooftop. He didn’t wave.

“Four on the left,” he heard McCree murmur, counting the heat signatures crouched against each other just passed the door that only they had the eyes to see, “Two on the right?”

“Three,” he clarified, eyes more attuned, better for picking out the silhouettes. He and McCree watched them shuffle for a moment, trying to memorise their positions before the red faded away and they were left in the silvery moonlight.

He watched McCree reach down, slow, almost lazy, yanking his arrow from the hard-packed dirt, breaking off the cybernetic head and shoving it into a pocket with the others. He remembered asking him to do it, to collect them when he could. He hadn’t asked the others, even if a few of them might have obliged him, knowing that his every request was met with an accusation of hidden intentions, searched for either apology or evil, depending on the view. McCree looked at him with unassuming eyes, shrugging his shoulders, muttering “sure,” and going back to his paperwork, as if he looked no deeper into Hanzo’s actions than he looked into his own.

He couldn’t help how easy McCree made working, just a job, just something to do, just something they had to get done, as if it didn’t take every fibre of his self control not jump out of his window every evening, as if he wasn’t dragging a boulder up a mountain with every word he said to his brother and heard in return.

McCree straightened, twirling the shaft of the arrow around in his fingers, knowing that Hanzo would be watching.

“So,” he drawled through the com, eyes not leaving where the figures had been, “My trick or yours?” 

“The dragons will draw more attention,” Hanzo murmured back, watching the hostages shift and shuffle, not understanding why they had paused, why the urgency to leave had faltered in their rescuer, who he was talking to.

“So mine then?”

For a moment, he didn’t respond, looking down on them. One of the women was holding onto the back of McCree’s serape, keeping close to his back, a small child clutched to her chest. They’d heard that they were there, a dozen of them taken from the town nearby, held for a ransom the townspeople didn’t have, three days’ worth of hunger and thirst in their eyes. McCree’s voice had come achingly soft through the com, Hanzo waiting for him to reappear from the building he’d entered.

“I found ‘em,” he’d said, voice tight. There had been a long pause, the sort of pause men like McCree didn’t use frequently, “Hanzo,” there was a breath, “partner, I don’t think I can leave them in here, there are kids in here.” They’d only meant to scout the base, in and out, silent as the wind, if they found the hostages they’d come back for them, more men, more firepower. But McCree was soft hearted, and they hadn’t known there were children. He’d pleaded with him through the com, asking for his help, soft voiced in his ear.

He’d run fingers through his hair, trying to figure out of it was even possible, if he could guarantee their safety as the moved through the compound, if that mattered. He couldn’t guarantee their safety if they stayed. And McCree was right, they couldn’t leave children here, they were only going to get more traumatised, hungrier, more at risk the longer no ransom was paid. And they couldn’t move them without their mothers to comfort them either.

He’d agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose, listening to McCree sign in relief, not knowing if he would be able to protect them, but certain that he’d try. McCree tended to bring that out in him.

“No,” he murmured, eyes not leaving him, “you should stay with the hostages, I will do it.” He watched McCree consider the terms, considering its consequences. He could say no if he wanted, Hanzo would listen. To possibly no one else but him.

“Alrighty,” he heard McCree mutter, mind elsewhere, planning, “When I see your fellas a’glowin’, we’re gonna run for the break in the gate, same as before, we’ll meet you there,” Hanzo was already making for the edge of the roof, bow gripped in his hand as he caught McCree’s last sentence, “stay safe.”

He tapped out of the com.

…

When they were done, Hanzo kept close to him, carved out a place for himself at his side, refusing to look at the hostages; knowing that without a hostile distance between them, all he’d be able to do was snap. As they made it back to base Hanzo kept close to him, like he could hide in his shadow, remain unseen like he’d been on the rooftop, even with the broad attention of subordinates on them, needing intel on entry and exit points, a catalogue of bullets and arrows fired, enemy fatalities, if they could recall. They stood together in the fray, and Hanzo found himself more than willing to let McCree do the talking, the dragons still hot and tight under his skin, barely contained, still writhing with bloodlust and curiosity for the world they found themselves in so little.

He kept his eyes narrow and his arms crossed across his chest, and he knew that he should have been thinking about the fact that this wasn’t what he’d come here for. He hadn’t agreed to join this daft organisation to spend weeks completing missions with some scruffy beatnik, to crawl back to a metal box with every muscle sore, and he certainly hadn’t come so that he could grow even slightly attached to the misplaced renegade wearing a blanket he’d been paired with. And yet, he couldn’t find the strength to budge, like an exhausted crow on a tree branch, huddled against the nearest trunk of solid wood, the first safe haven he happened to see. He tried to convince himself that it could have been anyone, any face he knew in this sea of strangers.

He waited for this to be over.

At one point a woman threw her arms around McCree and Hanzo watched him visibly flinch, his weathered cheeks dusted with pink, his hat clutched in his metal hand, and then they were gone, back into the gentle embrace of a military organisation that had done this all before. Together, he and McCree watched them get loaded into a truck, heading back to town, back to their families, staring down the long road of forgetting this, of going back to who they'd been before, a road he and McCree had never managed to take. They were united in that.

He felt McCree rock against him.

“You alright?”

Hanzo looked up at him, looked up to his tired face, the dark circles under his eyes and his unbrushed hair, his shoulders still taunt and twisted, none of his grace now that they were alone, bathed in the the glow of the truck’s taillight. But he asked Hanzo if he was alright, asked the same way he patted down his pockets for things he might have forgotten, checking that everything vital was secure before he let his guard down and went to find some flat surface to sleep on, a sort of diligence to his features

From somewhere deep inside, Hanzo found the energy to bristle, turning to watch truck pulling away. 

“I have no need of your concern,” he hissed.

McCree peered down at him, his face lit up the orange glow of the taillights, blinking slowly. But after a moment he let out a low chuckle, rubbing his hand over his mouth, his beard becoming unkempt, something almost charmed in his eyes, almost fond, laughing again as if his exhaustion had made him delirious.

“You know what, Hanzo?” McCree hummed, eyes sparkling in the low light, his smooth, honey laugh echoing form above him “I’d be real sad if something happened to you.”

Something awful fluttered in his chest at the words, like there was a bird making a nest from his ribcage, and he was grateful for the darkness, a flush spreading down his throat. It had been a very long time since he’d thought anyone would care if something happened to him, a very long time indeed.

…

McCree’s hand landed hard on the back of his head, forcing it down and shooting over him. Hanzo sprung back up a moment later, arrow nocked and flying, alternating fire, McCree dragging him back down by the back of his yukata. Bullets sent sparks jerking through the air, singing against the car they hid behind, ricocheting in all directions, McCree’s metal hand still holding onto him like he was some sort of stray kitten, firing wildly at their assailants. He heard a yell as one of his bullets found its mark, could imagine the body tripping backwards, the locked gasp of blood already pooling.

“Let go of me,” he hissed, managing to bend his arm back to whack McCree in the temple with his bow. McCree let go of him with out even sparing him a glance, teeth half bared, shoulders coiled, blood and scratches framing his face, Hanzo could almost see his brain working, rapidly trying to think of a plan, either an exit strategy or an offensive tactic, one of the two.

If McCree thought that they were going to be able to combat this, fight these people and win, Hanzo was going to stab him, right here in the graveyard of dead and dying cars they’d been chased into. He had the knives for it.

“We have to run, McCree,” his voice came out of him with a snarl, teeth grinding in his mouth, only three arrows left, McCree running out of ammunition. His heart was in his throat, staring at McCree’s taunt expression, their covers blown, knowing that they couldn’t maintain this stalemate, that one of the parties was going to have to make a move eventually. He was fairly certain it was a good time to start dodging bullets, bailing while they still could. They could deal with Morrison if they lived. He and McCree had a good strike rate, most of their missions were successful, uncomplicated. No one could expect perfection one hundred percent of the time, he’d take the blame if that was what was necessary, he’d deliver Morrison a hand written note of apology and a basket of fucking muffins if that was what got McCree moving.

McCree didn’t even look at him, crouched against the car, hackles raised, reloading the Peacekeeper with the four bullets he had left. “McCree,” Hanzo hissed at him again, snapping his fingers in front of his face, “attention.”

McCree’s eyes flickered over to him, blinking into focus, eyebrows furrowing, flicking the barrel back into the Peacekeeper.

“I’m payin’ attention,” he whispered.

“Wonderful,” Hanzo found himself gesturing wildly like he needed movement to hold his eyes, “we have to run now.”

McCree shook his head, leaning over him to shoot twice, Hanzo’s nose buried briefly in his serape.

“I don’t think we can make that distance,” he muttered, “not under this sort of fire.”

“I’m sorry,” Hanzo snarled at him as he flinched back down, a bullet barely missing his hat, “do you have a better _fucking_ plan?” 

“No,” McCree grunted, patting himself down for any spare pouches of ammunition, “But I’d really like to avoid gettin’ shot in the back, thanks.”

Hanzo shoved the spine of his bow hard into his chest, white knuckles thudding against the steel under his serape, almost pushing him backwards into the dust, teeth bared, panic starting to claw into his throat. He hadn’t meant for this to be so hard, hadn’t meant for this mission in particular to be so dangerous, to have so many close shaves attached. They’d told him that he might have joined so that he could attempt reconciliation with his brother, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get put in the firing line the same as anyone else, wouldn’t be asked to take a hit every now and again. But it hadn’t bothered him then like it did now.

After all.

McCree would be sad if something happened to him.

McCree was right to be wary, but Hanzo had no time for it. Soon enough they were going to start flanking, going to start circling them like sharks in a sea of scrap metal, they probably had grenades, and of all the places he’d be content dying, this was not it. He’d rather risk the dash from vehicle to vehicle than wait for the creeping advance of men with more bullets than them. And coupled with the risk of being shot was the promise that if they made it, they might be able to sink into the darkness, slip behind the building to the south, just beyond the cars, make it to the extraction point if they were fast enough.

He snarled.

“Die here or die there, McCree, make up your mind.”

McCree ran his tongue over his teeth, eyes pinned on some point in the distance as if mapping their route from cover to cover, trying to figure out their likelihood of survival. He’d listen to McCree under many circumstances, took his advice often, but if he refused to budge now, Hanzo was going to hit him over the head with the nearest heavy object and drag him across the battlefield by his boots. And McCree must have seen it in his eyes, in the way Hanzo’s hand was tightening around his arm, having no idea of when it had come to be there, because he nodded, hesitant expression on his face.

“Alright,” he grunted, “lets go.”

Hanzo almost fell backwards in relief. He was a strong man, but he doubted that he could have thrown McCree over his shoulder with any grace.

“On three?” He whispered, a touch of harshness gone from his voice.

“On three.”

They counted down together on their fingers, McCree holding a handful of bullet casings, pulled from his hat, waiting until just on three to throw them in a clatter in the opposite direction they’d agreed to run. A second later he yelled loud: “that way! They are goin’ that way!” Hanzo could see him trying to smooth down his own accent, put spaces between his words, but he didn’t pause to think about it, dragging him out from behind the car before he could hesitate, his body firmly planted at his side, like a shadow solid against him. And suddenly they were running to the sound of gunfire swinging wildly in the wrong direction.

For a few awful, terrible moments, they were completely clear, no part of them covered, a single stray bullet would do the trick, if the agents got their bearings a half second before and that would have been it. McCree pushed him harshly onwards, a hand at his hip, body at his back, crowding him from car to car, running half bowed, firing behind them, the first bullet and then the second. Other bullets followed, the agents realising their mistake, guns swinging from one direction to the other.

McCree pushed him out from cover a half second after they’d arrived, darting out from behind the third car, hoping that their assailants would assume that they might pause. They scrambled onwards until they managed to skid behind the building to the south, falling over each other to get behind cover, Hanzo barely able to figure out who’s limbs were who’s. His heart was pounding in his chest, machine gun fire suddenly shattering against the stone above them, sending dust flying, flinching hard. McCree was shuddering against him, half on top of him, half beside, trying to stabilise himself as Hanzo wriggled backwards, shrinking against the wall.

“I don’t think that trick’s gonna work twice,” McCree’s voice came grunting from somewhere very close to him, his head positioned somewhere over his shoulder. He opened his mouth to respond, lying on his back, propped up on his elbows, McCree heavy on top of him, but the words died in the back of his throat as he felt an awful warmth spreading slowly over his stomach. He waited, held still, built from tension like strings pulled taunt, but no pain came.

It wasn’t his, he realised, dread dawning on him, the blood wasn’t his. He felt the colour drain from his face, the horror rising up in him, McCree’s breath ragged in his ear.

“McCree?” He found himself whispering, terror filling him, panic coming to his voice, “McCree?”

“I’m good,” came the muttered reply, teeth gritted, motionless on top him, “it’s-we’re gonna be fine,” his voice turning faint. And Hanzo suddenly realised how harrowing it would be to feel the life drain out of him, eyes widening over his shoulder, to feel the strength leave his body, to feel his heart stop beating in his chest, blood drained out of him.

He wouldn’t get over it.

He’d leave Overwatch, he’d have to, wouldn’t be able to face his brother, wouldn’t be able to explain, he’d go back on the road and he wouldn’t get over it, wouldn’t ever stop feeling the sensation of his breath on his throat, his arms shaking, bleeding badly into his yukata.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice half shaking, “we shouldn’t have run.”

“Doesn’t matter,” McCree grunted in his ear, finally starting to move, “gotta get out of here.” McCree dragged himself upwards, tripping forward, one hand affixing his hat to his head, the other pressing into the wound, dark red stains forming between the plates of his armour and the shirt beneath. Hanzo scrambled after him as he stumbled behind a nearby wall, the two of them just fast enough to avoid the spray of gunfire. He found himself slipping against him, pulling his arm over his shoulders, knowing suddenly that he’d do a lot to avoid that fate for them.

He’d spent so long, so many nights spent awake, thinking about the fact that McCree would be sad if something happened to him, thought about it constantly, about how long it had been since someone had been invested, since he’d known that if he was gone, someone would notice, McCree would notice. The concept had burned through him, occupied his thinking at all hours of the day, always his first thought when a bullet went flying past his ear, when time slowed to see whether or not he dodged the blow. McCree would be sad.

He’d been so preoccupied with it he hadn’t even considered that it was him who would be sad if something happened to McCree, that it had become important to him that he didn’t die early. And that too was a rare and precious thing.

He pulled McCree against him, looking up at his face.

“I care if you die,” he hissed.

McCree had the indecency to laugh.

“Thanks, darlin’.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> McCree: *is nice to him*  
> Hanzo: I would die for this man

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I dig the concept of a relationship between McCree and Hana, I love the idea of McCree like coming back from like a smoke break or something a seeing it all from behind and being like "heh, that little lady's gonna shoot that perv. Good for her." And then getting a bit closer and being like "wait fuck that's our little lady." 
> 
> Also, the someone who's waiting on McCree is Hanzo, he doesn't like drinking with the others so McCree always finds an excuse to leave early and crawl back to him.


End file.
